





























































































































LITTLE JOURNEYS 

IN HIS KINGDOM 


FOR BEGINNERS IN CHURCH HISTORY 


C. A. WENDELL 





AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN 

ROCK ISLAND, ILL. 





3~Risi 

■ Wf 


Copyright, 1923, 

BY 

AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN 


Printed in the United States of America. 



ROCK ISLAND, ILL. 

AUGUSTANA BOOK CONCERN, PRINTERS 

0 C ¥ 2 -4 1923 


©C1A760368 




I 




Inquire, I pray thee, 
of the former age, 

And apply thyself to that 
which their fathers 
have searched out. . . . 
Shall not they teach thee, 
and tell thee. 

And utter words 
out of their heart? 


Job 8. 8, io. 





PREFACE 


A year or two ago I confided to a few friends 
that I had been asked to prepare a brief textbook 
in Church History for young people, and that I 
had begun to work on it. 

This is not the book. 

What I had in mind at that time was intended 
for somewhat more advanced readers. But there 
was said to be a demand for something in this line 
for boys and girls of confirmation age, and by re¬ 
quest I laid aside my original purpose and turned 
to this. 

To what extent this little book will meet the 
alleged wants remains to be seen, but I hope that 
in judging it the reader will bear in mind the view¬ 
point from which it was written. It is not intended 
as a compendium. No attempt has been made to 
give all the names, dates, and events that might be 
crowded into a few pages. The aim has been 
rather to interest the young reader and thus induce 
him to turn to more elaborate works later on. 

At the same time the aim has been to make it, 
as far as possible, a practical textbook. The teach- 

7 



8 


er, the class, and the class room have constantly 
been kept in view. That is the reason for the 
questions to be found at the end of each chapter, 
as well as the Review lesson which follows at the 
end of each of the three great periods. 

The Test Questions offer the student an oppor- 
tunity to prove that he really has studied the les¬ 
son. They may be answered either orally or in 
writing, or both, as the teacher may find best. The 
Study Questions, intended for discussion in the 
class, aim at a deeper insight into the subject. Like 
the Test Questions they are of course only sug¬ 
gestions. The teacher should feel free to sub¬ 
stitute others if he so desires. 

The suggestions for Private Devotion may seem 
like an innovation. If so, I hope that it is not 
an objectionable one. Church history is sacred 
history. If we are to make “little journeys in His 
kingdom,” let us walk with Him, and let Him speak 
to us as we go. That is the purpose of the Scrip¬ 
ture passage referred to each time, as well as the 
soul-searching questions that appear here and there. 
Naturally these questions should not be taken up 
in class, but the teacher should do whatever he can 
to foster the habit of private devotion by these or 
similar means. 

The frequent use of the personal pronoun “1” 
may offend some, and expose me to the charge of 


9 


foolish egotism; therefore I might as well admit 
that I have committed the offence quite deliberately, 
and for a definite purpose. The customary pretense 
at hiding behind the conventional “we” or “the 
author” or some such device did not appeal to me. 
It would have put me at a distance from my young 
friends, whereas my desire was to get as close to 
them as possible. Let us hope that it was not a 
serious mistake. 

Many of the shortcomings to be found in these 
pages will have to seek shelter under the fact that 
the book is the product of spare moments. 

Cordial thanks are due Dr. C. W. Foss and Dr. 
Inez Rundstrom for valuable advice, both as to the 
historical and the pedagogical features of the work. 


The Author. 







































. 






































CONTENTS 


PAGE 

The Early Period. 

The Beginning . 15 

The First Church . 19 

Jewish Persecutions . 23 

Pagan Persecutions . 29 

The First “Christian” Emperor . 33 

The Battle about an Iota . 37 

The Church Fathers . 42 

St. Augustine . 47 

Review of the Early Period. 52 

The Middle Ages. 

The Early Missionaries . 59 

Monks and Monasteries . 63 

Mohammedanism . 69 

The Crusades . 74 

The Rise of the Pope . 79 

The Power of the Pope . 83 

How Rome Became the Headquarters. 87 

The Inquisition . 91 

The False Foundation . 95 

Review of the Middle Ages. 99 

The Modern Period. 

Out of the Marshes. 107 

Away from Rome . 112 

On Solid Ground . 116 

The Order of Worship .'.!.. 121 

The Counter Reformation . 126 

The Thirty Years War . 131 



























12 


PAGE 

Exploring the Bible Again . 136 

When the Wilderness Blossomed . 141 

The Spread of the Reformation . 147 

The Whirlpool of Modern Cults. 151 

The Lutheran Church in America. 156 

The Augustana Synod . 161 

Review of the Modern Period. 166 

MAPS 

The Roman Empire..Opposite page 29 

Arabia . 69 

Germany in the Time of Luther. 107 

The Spread of the Reformation. 147 















THE EARLY PERIOD 


From the First to the Fifth Century 
About 500 Years 



1. THE BEGINNING 


Let us begin with a journey to Jerusalem, 
the City of God. What a venerable history 
it has! King David made it the capital of 
his kingdom and brought the ark of the cov¬ 
enant into it; Solomon built his wonderful 
temple and his brilliant palace there; Gen¬ 
tiles besieged it and razed it to the ground, 
and the chosen people built it up again; 
Herod the heathen beautified it and restored 
the temple once more; Titus— 

But it is not the city to which we shall 
turn our attention just now. It is a wonder¬ 
ful event that took place there a short time 
after Jesus had ascended into heaven. It 
occurred at a prayer meeting attended by 
about one hundred and twenty of the friends 
of Jesus, His own mother and His apostles 
being among them. Day after day, for ten 
days, they had met thus and prayed in His 
name. Then, on the tenth day, which was 
Pentecost, the wonderful thing happened. 
Luke, the Greek physician who wrote the 
gospel of Luke and the book of Acts, tells us 
that “suddenly there came from heaven a 

15 


16 

sound as of the rushing of a mighty wind, 
and it filled all the house where they were 
sitting. And there appeared unto them 
tongues parting asunder, like as of fire; and 
it sat upon each one of them. And they were 
all filled with the Holy Spirit, and began to 
speak with ether tongues, as the Spirit gave 
them utterance.” 

It seems that the sound of that mysterious 
wind could be heard quite a distance, for a 
multitude came together. If it was not the 
sound itself they heard, it certainly was the 
rumor of what had happened. At any rate, 
they gathered in large numbers. Can you 
not imagine how astonished they were—just 
as you and I would be if something like that 
happened at one of our prayer meetings. 
How some of them must have stared and 
craned their necks to find out what it was all 
about! And I suppose some of them were 
actually scared, and that others prayed, for 
it seems that most of them were devout men. 
But some laughed at it and said there was 
nothing to it—just as some people do now. 
“Those fellows are drunk,” they said, 
“there’s no sense to what they say.” 

Then Peter arose, for he could not stand 
to see anybody laugh at the work of the Holy 
Spirit, and preached one of the most remark- 


17 


able sermons ever heard. Would you not 
like to read that sermon? You may read all 
that we know about it if you will turn to the 
second chapter of Acts and read verses 14 
to 36. It was a sermon with a message, and 
the message went home, for we read that 
“they were pricked in their heart, and said 
unto Peter and the rest of the apostles 
Brethren, what shall we do? And Peter 
said unto them, Repent ye, and be baptized 
every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ 
unto the remission of your sins; and ye shall 
receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.” And we 
are told that “there were added unto them in 
that day about three thousand souls.” 

Such was the first day of the Church of 
the Lord Jesus. What a wonderful begin¬ 
ning! 

Test Questions. i. In what city was the Church 
of Christ born? 2. The wonders of Pentecost followed 
upon a series of prayer meetings. How many days did 
they last? 3. What noted people attended them? 4. 
What remarkable events took place on the day of Pente¬ 
cost? 5. How many souls were added to the Church 
that day? 

Study Questions. 1. What/ happened immediately 
after the prayer meetings? After Peter’s sermon? 
Which seems to you the more remarkable? Why? 2. 
Peter was an uneducated laborer, yet here he stands 


18 


forth as a powerful and fearless preacher. What is 
there in our story to account for it? 

For Private Devotion. Joel 2: 28-32. Wonderful are 
Thy promises, O Lord, and wonderful their fulfillment. 
Serious questions rise out of them and look search- 
ingly into my heart. Has the Holy Spirit been poured 
out upon me? Have I ever experienced the power of 
the Word of God as did the people who heard Peter 
preach? Have I repented of my sins as they did? Dear 
Lord, I would search my soul in Thy presence. Do 
Thou give the answer. 


19 


2. THE FIRST CHURCH 

What kind of church members do you sup¬ 
pose they made, those new converts who had 
come into the fold through such a wonderful 
experience? 

Before their conversion they were, of 
course, very much like other people. They 
had homes and families; they worked and 
earned money; they spent it for things they 
needed, and sometimes for things they did 
not need; they saved up all they could and 
laid it aside for future needs; they were fond 
of their possessions and loved to say, “This 
is mine, I have earned it, and nobody can 
take it away from me.” 

But the coming of the Holy Spirit into 
their hearts made a great difference. 
Worldly things, which had been so dear to 
them, suddenly lost their hold. They no 
longer gloried in them, and nobody enjoyed 
to own anything that some one else might 
need more than he did. “They sold all their 
possessions and goods, and parted to them 
all, according as any man had need. . . . 
They had all things in common.” 


20 


Of course this looked very foolish to the 
worldings who still loved their earthly prop¬ 
erty, but the Christians did not mind that, 
for they had found something better. They 
had experienced the love of God and the joy 
of having every sin forgiven. The love of 
Christ filled their hearts to overflowing, and 
they were so glad that earthly possessions 
did not interest them very much any more. 
After all, these earthly things are only a sort 
of picture of the truer things which the good 
Lord would give us. And the picture of 
some one we love may be ever so dear to us 
while the loved one is away, but if he comes 
himself the picture does not interest us any 
more. So it was with these early Christians. 
While they lived for the world they loved the 
world and the things that are in the world, 
but when He Himself came to them, they lost 
interest in the world. In their hearts they 
sang, “Thou, 0 Christ, art all I want.” 

But were they all such dear, consecrated 
saints? Were they all so kind and helpful 
to the poor and needy, all so free from the 
power of the world? How pleasant it would 
be to say Yes, but we cannot. It would not 
be true. For even into this little paradise 
the serpent came. There were at least two 


21 


among those early Christians who did not 
dare to trust God entirely. This idea of sell¬ 
ing everything and having all things in com¬ 
mon looked a little bit risky to them. They 
did not quite dare to try it, and so they kept 
a part of their property, in case anything 
should go wrong with the little community. 
But that was not the worst of it. The dread¬ 
ful thing about it was that they lied and pre¬ 
tended that they had given up everything. 
That was the worst of all, for deceit is one of 
the deadliest of all sins. We can see this by 
the fact that as soon as the deceit was laid 
bare, both of them dropped dead—first Ana¬ 
nias and then Sapphira, his wife. It was a 
fearful lesson, and must have made a deep 
impression on the rest of the members. 

Test Questions, i. After their conversion, what did 
the early Christians do with their earthly possessions? 
2. Did the leaders of the Church compel them to do it, 
or did they do it of their own free will? 3. What was 
it really that prompted them to do as they did? 4. What 
two members failed to do as the others did? 5. What 
happened to them? 

Study Questions. 1. What is the difference between 
this early Christian Communism and the Communism 
usually proposed in our day? 2. What was the real sin 
committed by Ananias and Sapphira? 3. Some one has 
spoken of the “expulsive power of a new affection.” Ex¬ 
plain and prove it by the story of these early Christians. 


22 


For Private Devotion. Col. 3. 2. Lord Jesus, how 
far do I resemble these early Christians? Do I love 
Thee better than earthly pleasures and possessions? 
Would I be willing to give them up if I knew that they 
kept me away from Thee? Dear Lord, whatever of 
earthly joys may be mine, bless them by teaching me to 
love Thee more than them. 




23 


3. JEWISH PERSECUTIONS 

Look at that crowd yonder! How excited 
they are! They have just come out from the 
council chamber in the city (Jerusalem) and 
they look angry enough to kill some one. In 
fact that is exactly what they intend to do, 
and the victim is right in the center of the 
crowd. What hideous crime do you suppose 
he has committed? None at all. He has told 
them the truth, that is all, but 0 how that 
does hurt some people! He is a friend of 
Jesus, and that is one reason why they hate 
him. When they could not prove that he had 
done anything sinful or illegal they hired 
false witnesses who were willing to lie and 
swear falsely in court, just as they had done 
with Jesus himself, and that was how they 
“proved” that He had insulted God and 
broken the law. And now they are going to 
kill him! 

Who is this man? His name is Stephen, 
“a man full of faith and of the Holy Spirit 
. . . full of grace and power.” He is one of 
the seven deacons of the church we have just 
been reading about, and while he was on 


24 


trial for his life '‘all that sat in the council, 
fastening their eyes on him, saw his face as 
if it had been the face of an angel.” 

Now they are at the death place. They 
encircle their victim. Look!—It was a rock, 
hurled by some murderous hand. There goes 
another—and another! Like hail on a sul¬ 
try summer day the death-bearing missiles 
fall. Realizing that the end is near, Stephen 
calls upon his Master, “Lord Jesus, receive 
my spirit.” Then, falling upon his knees, he 
cries with a loud voice, “Lord, lay not this 
sin to their charge.” And with beautiful 
simplicity the writer of the sad story adds, 
“When he had said this, he fell asleep.” 

Thus did the first Christian martyr lay 

♦ 

down his life for the Master, manfully and 
gloriously, setting aril example which has 
thrilled all Christendom, century after cen¬ 
tury, and given many a saintly soul courage 
to endure martyrdom rather than deny the 
blessed Lord. And it was well so, for though 
Stephen was the first martyr, he was by no 
means the last one. So bitter were the Jews 
against Jesus and His followers that it 
seems that all of them had to suffer more or 
less. They were scourged, imprisoned, stoned. 
How many of them were killed we cannot 
tell, but it was probably a large number. 


25 


On the outskirts of the mob that killed 
Stephen was a young Pharisee who stood 
guard over the outer garments which the 
men had laid aside while they should do 
their bloody deed. He took no active part in 
the killing, but consented to it with all his 
heart. In fact he became one of the worst 
enemies of Christ—till suddenly, through a 
very strange experience, he was converted. 
Then he became just as eager to preach the 
gospel of Christ as he had been to condemn 
it. And then, of course, his countrymen 
turned against him. Directly or indirectly 
(through the Gentiles) they were after him 
all the rest of his life. Look at his own list 
of hardships he had to endure: “Of the Jews 
five times received I forty stripes save one. 
Thrice was I beaten with rods, once was I 
stoned, thrice I suffered shipwreck, a night 
and a day have I been in the deep; in jour- 
neyings often, in perils of rivers, in perils 
of robbers, in perils from my countrymen, in 
perils from the Gentiles, in perils in the city, 
in perils in the wilderness, in perils in the 
sea, in perils among false brethren; in labor 
and travail, in watchings often, in hunger 
and thirst, in fastings often, in cold and nak¬ 
edness.” 


26 


Who was this man? It was Saul of Tar¬ 
sus, or, as we know him better, the Apostle 
Paul. And how could he endure such awful 
hardships? I am sure I don’t know, unless 
it was that God gave him an unusual meas¬ 
ure of endurance. But I have read some¬ 
where that he actually took pleasure in suf¬ 
fering persecution for the Lord’s sake. I 
think there must have been two reasons for 
this. One was that when he had learned to 
know the love of Christ he never got over 
being grieved that he had once persecuted 
His followers, and he felt that it was only 
fair that he himself should suffer for what 
he had done. And the other was that he 
loved his Saviour so deeply that he was glad 
to suffer for His sake. 


Test Questions, i. Name the first Christian martyr. 

2. What office did he hold in the Church? 3. What 
great man was present at his martyrdom? 4. After his 
conversion, this great man “took pleasure in persecu¬ 
tion” against himself. Give two reasons for this. 

Study Questions. 1. What was probably the main 
reason why the Jews hated Stephen? Why do you think 
so? 2. Why did not Stephen hate the Jews in return? 

3. Our lesson contains two brief prayers by Stephen. 
Which one of them do you like best? Why? 4. What 
is the difference between the courage of this martyr and 
the courage usually displayed on the battle-field? 


27 


For Private Devotion. Matt. io. 16-18. Am I “full 
of faith and of the Holy Spirit” as Stephen was? If 
not, why not? O Lord Jesus, take out of my heart all 
pride and all self-will, that nothing may resist the 
work of the Holy Spirit. 







THE ROMAN EMPIRE. 









29 


4. PAGAN PERSECUTIONS 

Jesus had warned the Jews that unless 
they repented and turned to God, terrible 
calamities would befall them, but they paid 
no attention to that. They nailed Him to 
the cross and went right on. 

But you cannot defy God. In the year 70 
A.D., about forty years after the warning 
had been given, a Roman army besieged Je¬ 
rusalem, and after five months of the most 
horrible suffering the Jews had to surrender. 
The temple and the city were utterly de¬ 
stroyed and the whole nation was scattered. 

That gave the Christians, freedom from 
Jewish persecution, but now they were face 
to face with heathendom, and that was no 
better. The Romans were the rulers of the 
world. They had conquered every civilized 
nation, and some that were not civilized. 
The vast empire was bound together by 
every possible means, such as law, com¬ 
merce, military force, and the like. One of 
the chief means was emperor worship—act¬ 
ually worshiping the emperor as a god. That 
was looked upon as the highest mark of loy- 


30 

alty to the government, and everybody was 
expected to do it. Of course the Christians 
could not obey such a law, since they could 
worship no one but the true God, and that 
brought them into collision with the Roman 
government and all Roman “patriots.” They 
were branded as disloyal and treated as 
traitors. But treason was punished with 
death, and thousands upon thousands were 
killed because they obeyed God rather than 
men. 

Now in those times it was not customary 
to execute a person in the quickest and easi¬ 
est way possible, but rather in the most ter¬ 
rible way that cruel minds could invent. 
Many of the martrys were crucified, others 
were burned to death, and still others were 
thrown among hungry hyenas, wolves, or 
tigers, and torn to pieces. Women and chil¬ 
dren, as well as men, were treated in this 
way, and the cruel heathen would crowd into 
the big circus buildings, as people gather on 
the bleachers at a football game nowadays, 
and amuse themselves by looking at these 
horrors! You see, they considered the Chris¬ 
tians unpatriotic and felt that no punish¬ 
ment was too severe for them. That these 
same Christians were the best citizens in 
the empire, they could not see. 




31 

Would not such terrible treatment of the 
Christians frighten people, so that no one 
would dare to confess Christ? Of course 
that is what the Romans thought, but it did 
not always work that way. “The blood of 
the martyrs became the seed of the Church.” 
For nearly three hundred years the Roman 
government tried to root out the Christians 
in this way, and ten imperial persecutions 
swept over the empire; yet when Constan¬ 
tine ascended the throne as one of the rulers 
of Rome, in the year 306, there were no less 
than eight million Christians in the empire. 
And that in spite of the fact that only three 
years before, one of the most fearful of all 
the persecutions had carried away enormous 
numbers. Evidently persecution was not a 
a success. 

Test Questions, i. Who warned the Jews and urged 
them to repent? 2. How did they take His warning? 
3. Which was the strongest nation in the world at that 
time? 4. What brought the Christians into conflict with 
the Romans? 5. How long did the Pagan persecutions 
continue? 6. How did they effect the growth of the 
Church ? 

Study Questions. 1. Imagine yourself a Roman: what 
would you say in defense of the persecution of the 
Christians? 2. Imagine yourself a Christian in Pagan 
Rome: what reason would you give for refusing to obey 
the Roman government? 3. Explain the saying, “the 
blood of the martyrs became the seed of the Church.” 


32 


For Private Devotion. Matt. 5. 11-12. In Thy pres¬ 
ence, Lord, would I ask myself, Do I have the courage 
of my convictions, as did the early Christians? Would 
I die rather than to deny my Saviour? O give me 
courage to confess Thee before the world, whether I be 
ridiculed or persecuted; and make me ever kind and 
patient with those who despise or injure me. 


33 


5. THE FIRST “CHRISTIAN” 
EMPEROR 

For. three hundred years no one could be a 
Christian without danger of losing his life. 
For three hundred years the Christians were 
treated as dangerous people, traitors to the 
Roman empire, enemies of the human race, 
and therefore hated and tortured and killed. 
How good it must have seemed when at last 
there came an emperor who put a stop to 
this horrible practice, treated the Christians 
as good citizens, and finally made their re¬ 
ligion the religion of the land. How it must 
have thrilled them to see him preside at the 
opening of the first great gathering of lead¬ 
ers of the Church of Christ, at the Council 
of Nicaea, in 325. 

This emperor was Constantine, usually 
called “the Great.” He is generally spoken 
of as the first Christian emperor, though 
there has always been a great deal of doubt 
about the genuineness of his Christianity. 
He was in York, England (Britain they 
called it then), when his father, the com¬ 
mander of the Roman army in that country, 

Little Journeys. 2 . 


34 


was taken away by death. That was in 306. 
The army now made Constantine emperor, 
though Rome already had several of them. 
Two years later there were six in all, and 
for many years Constantine spent much of 
his time fighting the other five and plotting 
to get them out of the way. It took him 
seventeen years to do it, but he finally suc¬ 
ceeded. 

There was one thing about the Christians 
that he did not like at all. He needed sol¬ 
diers to help him win his victories, and the 
Christians would not fight. They had al¬ 
ways been opposed to war. They said it is 
wrong to kill people. “And if it is wrong to 
kill one,” they said, “it cannot be right to 
kill thousands.” Their great leaders too 
said that it is better to be killed than to kill. 
What was he to do? There were millions of 
able-bodied Christians by this time, and if 
he only could get them into his army he could 
conquer all his enemies. 

Just then a strange thing happened. 
About noon one day—if we may believe his 
story—he saw a bright cross in the sky. The 
next night he dreamed about it and thought 
that he saw words of fire above it. The 
words were, In hoc signo vinces (In this 
sign shalt thou conquer). This happened in 


35 


312. It is a beautiful story if rightly under¬ 
stood, for it is indeed by the cross of Christ 
that we conquer. Only we never really con¬ 
quer by killing our fellow men. The real 
victor is he who conquers himself, conquers 
temptation and sin in his own heart. That, 
however, was not the way Constantine un¬ 
derstood it. He thought it meant that if he 
would become a Christian the Lord Jesus 
would help him win his wars. That he was 
deeply impressed with what he had seen and 
dreamed, there can be no doubt. The Chris¬ 
tians noticed it and began to think that after 
all maybe the Lord did want them to help 
him in his wars. He had befriended them. 
If he should fail, a much worse man might 
get control. And so they began to join his 
army and help him fight. That is how mili¬ 
tarism got into the Church. 

There has been much guessing about that 
vision of Constantine’s. Some people think 
that he never had one—that he just made it 
up to trick the Christians into his army. 
Others think that he really saw a cross in the 
sky, just as many other people have done 
when the air was in a certain condition, and 
that he dreamed about it and saw those 
words of fire, just as he said he did, but that 
he put the wrong meaning into it. 


36 


At all events his reputation was not the 
best. He killed one of his own sons, one of 
his nephews, and finally his own wife. How 
many others he killed, outside of his family, 
I do not know. He enrolled as a catechumen, 
to prepare for Holy Baptism, but never al¬ 
lowed himself to be baptized until he was on 
his deathbed. Some of the coins he minted 
refer to Christ on one side and to Apollo 
(a heathen god) on the other. It is a sad 
story. One would like to think that the first 
great ruler who befriended the Christians 
was himself a consecrated Christian, but 
evidently it was not so. 

Test Questions, i. What did the Romans think of the 
Christians? 2. How long before it was safe to be a 
Christian in the Roman empire? 3. What emperor put 
a stop to the persecutions? 4. Where and when did the 
first great Church Council meet? 5. What did the early 
Christians think of militarism? 6. What good did 
Constantine do for the Church? 7. What harm did he 
do to it? 

Study Questions. 1. Would you call Constantine a 
Christian? Give reasons for your answer. 2. Resolved: 
That Constantine did more harm than good to the 
Church of Christ. (Debate). 

For Private Devotion. Mt. 7. 21. Am I a better 
Christian than Constantine was? Am I more eager for 
the glory of Jesus than for my own advantage? . . . 
Search me, O God, and know my heart: try me, and 
know my thoughts ; and see if there be any wicked way 
in me, and lead me in the way everlasting. 


37 


6. THE BATTLE ABOUT AN IOTA 

About three hundred years after Christ a 
man arose in Egypt who said that Jesus was 
only a man like other men. His name was 
Arius. He claimed that Jesus was created 
in the image of God, like the rest of us, and 
that the only difference between Him and us 
was that He was a much brighter image. 
But there was another man in Egypt, Atha¬ 
nasius by name, who said that Arius was al¬ 
together mistaken. Jesus was indeed a man, 
but He was more than that. He was never 
created, as we have been, for He was as 
great as God Himself, and just as eternal. 
He was both God and man. 

Now each one of these men had a great 
following. Some said that Arius was right, 
and others that Athanasius was right. The 
Church was splitting in two over the ques¬ 
tion. Then Constantine asked the great 
leaders, called bishops, to meet in Nicaea 
(about eighty miles southeast of what we 
now call Constantinople) and determine the 
real truth of the matter. That was in the 
year 325. About three hundred bishops 


38 


came, from Africa, Asia and Europe. The 
Emperor presided at the opening session, 
then left, so as to give the bishops full free¬ 
dom to solve their own problems. Both 
Arius and Athanasius were present, though 
neither had an official seat nor a right to 
vote. Everybody knew, however, that these 
men were the two great powers in the con¬ 
flict. 

The Council was in session all summer. 
It finally decided that Athanasius was right 
and Arius wrong. So far as the Church 
was concerned, that settled the matter for¬ 
ever. She had spoken, and everybody knew 
now what she believed. But Arius had a 
host of friends, and they said that after all 
he was right. So the quarrel continued. 

After a few years Arius died. You would 
naturally suppose that that would end 
the trouble, but it did not. After his death 
it grew hotter than ever. People not only 
quarrelled over it, they fought about it; and 
it is recorded that* at least one man lost his 
life in such a fray. Finally it settled down 
upon one word—a big Greek word— liomo- 
ousios. The followers of Arius said that if 
the Athanasians would insert an iota (the 
Greek for i, the smallest letter in the alpha¬ 
bet) between the homo and the ousios and 


39 


make it homoiousios, they would be satisfied 
and the quarrel would end. But the others 
refused. They said they would rather die 
than let in the i, and it never came in. 

It was literary a “battle about an iota.” 
Did you ever hear anything so stupid? 

But it was not stupid. Those men were 
no fools. They knew very well what they 
were doing. A great deal may depend upon 
a comma, or a hyphen, or a single letter. A 
rug and a drug are two very different things, 
yet in the spelling there is a difference of 
only one letter. A cosmic vision is sublime, 
but there is nothing sublime about a comic 
vision, though a mere s marks the difference 
in the spelling. A comma is a small thing, 
and so is a hyphen, yet the use of a comma 
instead of a hyphen once cost the fruit 
growers of the United States two million 
dollars. A mere little i turns homoousios 
into homoiousios, but in doing it it takes 
the heart out of our Christian faith. With¬ 
out the i the word means that Jesus and the 
Father are One, as Jesus Himself said that 
they are (John 10. 30), while with it the 
word means that they are merely similar; 
that is, that Jesus was not really God, but 
only a kind of image or picture of God. 


40 


Do you think it makes any particular dif¬ 
ference which we believe? Why, it makes 
all the difference in the world. If the 
Church had let in that little i and taught us 
to say that Jesus was homoiousios in relation 
to God, it would really have said that He was 
only a sort of picture of God—a most beauti¬ 
ful picture, of course, but only a picture. 
Now a picture cannot save us from our sins, 
no matter how perfect it may be, and we 
should really have had no Saviour at all. 
Some of those men of long ago saw that, and 
that is why they said that they would rather 
die than put in the i. Let us thank God for 
those men. Let us thank Him for the Coun¬ 
cil of Nicaea which kept out the wicked little 
intruder and saved our faith in the Saviour 
of the world. 

Test Questions, i. Who called the Council of Nicaea? 
2. What year? 3. Why was it called? 4. Where is 
Nicaea? 5. How many bishops attended the Council? 
6. From what three continents did they come? 7. How 
long was the Council in session? 8. Name the two most 
noted men at the Council. 9. State briefly what each 
believed about Jesus. 

Study Questions . 1. State as clearly as possible what 

the “homoousian controversy” was. 2. It has been said 
that the Council of Nicaea was the most important of 
all the Church Councils that ever met. Give all the 
reasons you can think of for such an opinion. 


41 


For Private Devotion. Mt. 16. 13-17. Lord Jesus, 
I thank Thee for the assurance of Thy humanity, that 
we may come to Thee as to an elder brother who can 
understand and sympathize with us; but I thank Thee 
even more for the knowledge of Thy Divinity, that we 
may look up to Thee as our Saviour and know that in 
Thee we meet God. 


42 


7. THE CHURCH FATHERS. 

Humanity is like a landscape. The com¬ 
mon people are the great plains, the more 
talented people are the hills, and the geniuses 
are the great mountain peaks. In all coun¬ 
tries and all ages you will find these differ¬ 
ences. It was so among the early Christians 
too. The “mountain peaks” there are called 
Church Fathers. Now you remember that 
from the plains we get the wholesome har¬ 
vests, the hills enrich the landscape and from 
their tops the horizon is greatly extended, 
the mountains point us to heaven and send 
life-giving streams to the plains below. And 
so it is among men. 

Did you ever climb a mountain? It took 
you a long time to get to the top, but when 
you got there—0 the glory of the scene! 
How pure the air was, how far you could see, 
how near you were to heaven! I wish we 
might climb one of these living mountains; 
which we could do by reading some of the 
great ideas there to be found about God and 
man, life and death, time and eternity, sin 
and forgiveness, and many other things be- 



43 


sides. Really, it would be worth while, but 
we cannot do it now. 

But if we cannot make the climb, we can 
at least say with the Psalmist, “I will lift up 
mine eyes unto the mountains/’ We can at 
least look at them as we pass by. We can 
study the map, so to speak, and see where 
they are located and what they are called. 
Of course this is not as interesting as to do 
the real climbing, but then if we cannot do 
the best thing let us do the next best. 

The Church Fathers are-usually divided 
into two groups: the Ante-Nicene and the 
Post-Nicene Fathers, that is, those who lived 
before and those who lived after the Council 
of Nicaea. The former are also divided into 
two groups: the Apostolic Fathers, or those 
who lived at the time of the Apostles, and 
the Post-Apostolic, or those who lived after 
that time but before the Council of Nicaea. 
Now let us turn to what we have called our 
map. In most cases we do not know with 
certainty when the man in question was 
born, or when he died, but the dates given 
are nearly correct. The Apostolic Age closed 
with the death of the last Apostle, which oc¬ 
curred about the year 100. Following are a 
few of the greatest of the Fathers, with the 


44 

birth year and the death year of each, as 
nearly as we know them. You need not 
memorize all these dates, but look at them 
carefully. The list of names at the end of 
the book will tell you how to pronounce these 
names. Learn this so that you can easily 
read them aloud: 

Clement of Rome, 30-101; Ignatius, 30- 
107; Polycarp, 81-167; Justin Martyr, 96- 
166; Irenaeus, 135-202; Tertullian, 160- 
230; Origen, 185-254; Cyprian, 195-258; 
Athanasius, 300-373; Hilary, 315-367; Basil 
329-379; Ambrose, 333-397; Chrysostom, 
347-407; Jerome, 331-441; Augustine, 354- 
430. 

How the Apostolic Fathers were loved by 
their fellow Christians may be seen from 
what Irenaeus says of Polycarp: “I could 
describe the place where the blessed Poly¬ 
carp sat and spoke, his going out and coming 
in, his manner of life, his face and form, his 
exhortations to the people, and what he re¬ 
lated of his intercourse with John, or with 
others who had seen the Lord; how he re¬ 
peated their words and what he had heard 
them tell of the Lord, His miracles and His 
discourses. For as he had received from 
men who had seen the Word of Life, so he 


45 

taught, in strict agreement with Holy Scrip¬ 
ture.” 

Of the martyrdom of Polycarp the follow¬ 
ing story is told: When the Roman procon¬ 
sul tried to induce him to save his life by 
blaspheming Christ he said, “Eighty and six 
years have I served Him, and He has done 
me no evil; how can I blaspheme my king 
and my Redeemer?” For this he was mar¬ 
tyred. 

Clement of Rome may speak for all the 
Fathers about their love for the Lord: 
“Jesus Christ is the way in which we find 
salvation, the high priest who presents our 
gifts, the intercessor and helper of our weak¬ 
ness. Through Him let us gaze up to the 
heights of heaven; through Him, as through 
a glass, behold the spotless and majestic 
countenance of God. Through Him are the 
eyes of our understanding opened; through 
Him our unreasoning and darkened souls are 
kindled with marvellous light.” 

Test Questions, i. To what is humanity likened in 
this chapter? 2. What do the plains here represent? 
3. The hills? 4. The mountains? 5. How old was 
Polycarp when he was martyred? 6. Copy the names 
of the Church Fathers mentioned in this lesson, placing 
them in a single column, one below the other, with the 
dates following the names. Draw a line between the 


46 


Apostolic and the Post-Apostolic Fathers, and a double 
line between the Ante-Nicene and the Post-Nicene Fa¬ 
thers. 

Study Questions, i. What advantage did the Apo¬ 
stolic Fathers have over all the others? 2. Three of the 
Church Fathers are quoted in this lesson. Which of 
the quotations do you value the most? Why? 

r 

j 

For Private Devotion. Ps. 121. 1-2. I thank Thee, 
O Lord, for those glorious far-off mountains, and for 
the streams of living water Thy love poured out upon 
them. Grant me likewise to dwell daily in Thy pres¬ 
ence, and keep me ever mindful that my help cometh 
from Thee and from no one else. 


’1 


47 


8. ST. AUGUSTINE. 

We have compared the Church Fathers to 
great mountains. The greatest of them 
all—the Mount Everest among them, as we 
might say—was Aurelius Augustine, usually 
called Saint Augustine. He was born in 
Northern Africa, in 354. His mother, Mon¬ 
ica, was a devout Christian, but his father, 
Patricius, was a heathen, and remained such 
almost to the end of his life. 

At the age of sixteen Augustine was sent 
to school in Carthage. Here he fell into bad 
company and bad habits. His mother 
grieved bitterly over it and prayed for him 
daily, but for years he paid no attention. 
When he finally did get interested in religion 
it was that of the Manichaeans. They were 
followers of a Persian by the name of Mani- 
chaeus who tried to mix the Christian re¬ 
ligion with that of Persia. They believed 
among other things that the human body be¬ 
longs to the “Kingdom of Darkness,” and is 
therefore evil, while the soul springs from 
the “Kingdom of Light,” and is therefore 
good. For ten years Augustine tried to sat- 


48 

isfy his soul with such fancies, but ended by 
calling them all “empty husks.” 

In 383, against his mother’s wishes and 
without her knowledge, he left Carthage and 
sailed away to Rome. He was now twenty- 
nine years of age. Yearning for his salvation, 
she soon followed him. In a few months 
they went on to Milan. Here he met Am¬ 
brose, the great bishop, whose eloquence was 
like music in his ears. Under the influence 
of his preaching Augustine began to study 
the Holy Scriptures, and in their light he 
saw that his evil life was an insult to God. 
He tried to stop sinning, but could not; 
neither could he enjoy sin any more. He be¬ 
came very unhappy. 

This unhappiness increased as time went 
on, until at last he felt that he could stand it 
no longer. Then one day, in bitter agony, 
he cried, “0 Lord, how long yet wilt Thou 
be angry? Remember not the sins of my 
youth! How long? how long? To-morrow, 
and again to-morrow. Why not to-day? 
Why not now? Why not this hour put an 
end to my shame?” Then if seemed to him 
as if a kindly voice out of heaven had said, 
“Take and read.” He went to his Bible and 
his eyes fell upon Romans 13. 13, 14. That 
was the word he needed. It broke the spell 


49 


and set him free—and there was joy in 
heaven over another sinner that repented. 
There was joy too in his mother’s heart, the 
heart out of which fervent prayers for his 
salvation had gone up to God for over thirty 
years. At last the answer had come. 

This happened in 386. He now turned the 
whole power of his genius to the service of 
the Lord, and became the greatests cham¬ 
pion of the gospel since the days of Paul the 
Apostle. One of his many books is still read 
and loved by thousands, and that is his “Con¬ 
fessions.” They are wonderful. Some day ; 
when you are a little older, you will want to 
read them. They make a neat little volume 
that can be bought for about a dollar. It 
is remarkable that both Protestants and 
Roman Catholics admire St. Augustine. He 
died in 430. 

Before we pass on, let me introduce you to 
his “Confessions” by offering you a few scat¬ 
tered pearls of thought, picked up here and 
there in that wonderful book. Do not hurry 
over them. Pause and think and try to un¬ 
derstand what he means: 

Pearls from Augustine. 

Thou madest us for Thyself, and our heart 
is restless, until it repose in Thee. 


50 


While turned from Thee, the One Good, 
I lost myself in a multiplicity of things. 

These lower things have their delight, but 
not like my God, who made all things. 

Man’s true honor is the image and likeness 
of God. 

Whoever seeks of God anything besides 
God, does not love purely. 

Wretched is every soul bound by the 
friendship of perishable things. 

They [the worldly minded] fled, that they 
might not see Thee seeing them. 

Christ, as God, is the home whither we go; 
Christ, as man, is the way whereby we go. 

Test Questions, i. Name the mother of Augustine. 
2. Tell of his religious experiences before he went to 
Rome. 3. Who were the Manichaeans, and what did 
they believe? 4. How did the preaching of Ambrose 
affect Augustine? 5. Tell of his conversion. 6. How 
long had his mother been praying for him? 7. Name 
one of his best books. 8. Give date of his birth and 
of his death. 

Study Questions. 1. Mention three influences that 
worked toward the conversion of Augustine. Which 
one do you suppose did most? Why do you think so? 

2. Perhaps Monica’s prayers affected Augustine all 
through life. Show from his life story that it may be so. 

3. Which two of the “pearls” from Augustine’s “Con¬ 
fessions” would you call the best of them all? Why? 


51 


For Private Devotion. I John 5. 14. When I pray 
for the salvation of some straying soul, and my prayers 
are not answered, and months lengthen into years, and 
I am tempted to give up, dear Lord, remind me of 
Monica and her wonderful prayer life. Remind me of 
those thirty years of prayerful waiting, and the glorious 
answer that finally came. Forgive my unbelief, and 
quicken faith within me. 


52 


9. REVIEW OF THE EARLY PERIOD 

Before going any farther, let us look back 
over the path we have traveled thus far, and 
try to recall what we have seen. 

A ten-day prayer meeting among the first 
disciples of the Lord resulted in the outpour¬ 
ing of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pente¬ 
cost. The mockery of certain unbelievers 
prompted the Apostle Peter to fearless 
preaching of the Word of God, and about 
three thousand souls were added to the little 
group of believers. Such was the origin of 
the Church of Christ. 

Those early Christians could speak of a 
real religious experience, so deep and so joy¬ 
ous indeed that the grip of earthly posses¬ 
sions relaxed its hold upon them and left 
them satisfied if only their daily needs were 
supplied. The deceit and doom of Ananias 
and Sapphira must have awed the beholders, 
but it served as a solemn warning and did 
no harm to the young Church. 

Most’of the Jews, particularly the leaders, 
could not believe that Jesus was the Messiah, 
the Redeemer of the world. They thought 


53 


of Him as an impostor and believed that 
they were doing God a service in trying to 
stamp out His followers. But with the fall 
of Jerusalem, in the year 70, their power 
was broken and they could no longer perse¬ 
cute. There were now three religious forces 
in the world: Judaism, broken; Paganism, 
powerful; and Christianity, still in its early 
infancy. 

The Roman Empire was the great world 
power at this time. Loyalty to Rome was 
necessary to hold the bulky Empire together, 
and for this purpose emperor worship was 
instituted. The Christians could not take 
part in this, for it was pure idolatry, and, 
hence, they were branded as disloyal and un¬ 
patriotic. For three hundred years they 
were treated as traitors and bitterly perse¬ 
cuted, but to no purpose. Bodies can be 
burned, but not ideas. The Truth prospered 
against all opposition. 

At last, in 306, an emperor came to the 
throne who put a stop to persecution. His 
name was Constantine. But Constantine se¬ 
duced the Bride of Christ (the Church) into 
a most unholy alliance with the world, and 
Christendom is still suffering from the ef¬ 
fects of it. The willingness with which the 
Church has lent herself to the aid of the war- 


54 

makers ever since his time is perhaps the 
most visible evil he fastened upon her, but 
by no means the only one. 

The first centuries dinned with disputes 
about religion. The most famous, and 
doubtless the most important of these was 
the dispute about the personality of Jesus. 
Arius held that He was created in the Image 
of God, like the rest of us. Athanasius op¬ 
posed this and taught that He was not cre¬ 
ated, but was eternal with the Father, and 
of the same essence as the Father, The 
Council of Nicaea (325) decided in favor of 
Athanasius and thus adopted the doctrine of 
the divinity of Christ. 

Among Christians as among other people 
some are more gifted than others, and these 
naturally become leaders. The great leaders 
of the first few centuries of the Christian 
era are called Church Fathers, and the great 
service they rendered was to formulate the 
Christian faith. A dozen or more became 
famous, but St. Augustine was the greatest 
of them all. 

Church History is unusually divided into 
three periods, as follows: 

The Early (or Ancient) Period, from the 
First to the Fifth century, or about five hun¬ 
dred years. 


55 


The Middle Ages, from the Fifth to the 
Fifteenth century, or about one thousand 
years. 

The Modern Period, from the Fifteenth 
century to the present time, or nearly five 
hundred years. 

With regard to the Church itself the Early 
Period may be looked upon as the time of 
Formation. 

Test Questions, i. What brought those three thousand 
souls into the Church on the day of Pentecost? 2. What 
made the members of the first Church so satisfied? 3. 
\Yhich lasted longer, the Jewish or the Pagan persecu¬ 
tions? 4. What good and what harm did Constantine 
do to the Church? 5. When did the Council of Nicaea 
meet, and what great question was decided there? 6. 
Who was the greatest of the Church Fathers? 7. State 
the principal divisions of Church History. 

Study Questions. 1. Who had the least excuse for 
persecuting the Christians, the Jews or the Romans? 
Give all the reasons you can for your opinion. 2. Who 
was the greatest man of the Early Period? Why do 
you think so? 

For Private Devotion. Acts 20. 29-30. Here in my 
quiet room I have looked across the centuries and seen 
the fulfillment of Thy words. I have seen Thy disciples 
go forth as sheep, and I have seen the wolves rush in 
upon them. But in the midst of it all I have seen Thee, 
calm, patient, and purposeful. O dear Lord, deepen my 
faith in Thee, and teach my poor heart to trust Thee 
whatever may happen. Amen. 










. 








THE MIDDLE AGES 

From the Fifth to the Fifteenth Century, 
About i,coo Years. 







59 


10. THE EARLY MISSIONARIES 

Do you like traveling? This lesson will 
take you to several different countries. I 
only wish that we might linger a little longer 
in each one, but we must make our visits 
very, very brief. 

When we speak of the Apostles we usually 
think of the Twelve whom Jesus chose to be 
His special friends and messengers, but we 
sometimes use it in a wider sense, meaning 
missionaries to the Gentiles. Thus we speak 
of Boniface, the apostle to the Germans; 
Ansgar, the apostle to the Swedes, and so on. 
The two words really mean the same thing: 
“one who is sent,” especially one who is sent 
to preach the gospel. It is the Lord who 
sends them, and He does it because He loves 
the poor heathen and would like to save them 
and make them better and happier than they 
ever can be without Him. 

The story of these “apostles to the Gen¬ 
tiles” and the work they did is more interest¬ 
ing than fiction. If we cannot get all of it at 
present, we can at least start an acquaint¬ 
ance with them by finding out their names, 


60 

and when they lived, and where they worked. 
The following list w T ill help us do this: 

Ulfilas to the Goths, Fourth century. 

Patrick to Ireland, Fifth century. 

Columba to Scotland, Sixth century. 

Augustine* to England, Sixth century. 

Boniface to Germany, Eighth century. 

Ansgar to Sweden, Ninth century. 

They were good men, these early mis¬ 
sionaries, who loved the Lord and their fel¬ 
low men more than their own lives. The 
people to whom they were sent seldom re¬ 
ceived them kindly, for they worshiped pagan 
gods and did not like the risk of making a 
change. “We know what the gods of our 
fathers can do,” their priests would say, 
“but who knows what this new one is good 
for?” You see they thought that Jesus was 
like one of their own gods, only new and un¬ 
known to them. If the crops failed, or a 
storm came up, or sickness broke out, they 
thought it was because the gods were angry 
with them for listening to this foreign re¬ 
ligion. 

In some countries, like England and Swe¬ 
den, the king and some of his great advisers 

*Do not confuse this missionary Augustine with Aurelius Augus¬ 
tine, the Church Father. They are two different men, and there 
is a hundred years between them. The missionary is sometimes 
called Austin. 



61 


might be friendly, and of course that would 
help the missionaries a great deal, but the 
pagan priests were almost always against 
them and would stir up the people to oppose 
them. That made it very hard for the mis- 
sionaries, as well as for the natives who 
might wish to become Christians. Many of 
them had to die for their faith. Some peo¬ 
ple said, “Let us try the new religion and see 
what it is good for,” and so they would keep 
the altar to the old gods at one end of the 
temple, and erect a new one to Christ at the 
other end! 

But the missionaries went right on, in 
good report and evil report, telling the story 
of Jesus—telling of His beautiful life, His 
wonderful teachings, His painful death, and 
His glorious resurrection. And the power of 
that story would touch one here and one 
there, till at last whole tribes, whole nations, 
were won over. The missionaries built 
churches and monasteries and schools, they 
brought books and taught the people how to 
read, they made tools and showed them how 
to cultivate the soil and raise good crops, 
how to spin and weave and do useful work. 
By word and deed they convinced them that 
it is better to love than to hate, better to for¬ 
give than to seek revenge. In short, they 


62 


brought Christian civilization to the half 
savage heathen, blessing both body and soul. 
And God prospered them, so that it is esti¬ 
mated that eight hundred years after Christ 
there were over twenty million Christians in 
the world. 

Test Questions, i. What does the word missionary 
mean? 2. Who sends missionaries? 3. Why? 4. Name 
the missionaries mentioned in this lesson, together with 
the century in which they lived, and the country in which 
they worked. 5. What great difficulties did they encoun¬ 
ter? 6. Mention, as far as you can, all the good they 
did. 

Study Questions. 1. Point out at least two differences 
between the “Apostles to the Gentiles” and the Twelve 
Apostles. Which do you consider the more important 
differences? Why? 2. Why would the pagan priests 
naturally be the most stubborn opponents to the new 
religion ? 

For Private Devotion. Rom. 7. 22-25. Into m y heart, 
as into Europe long ago, Thy gospel comes, dear Lord; 
but here, as there, distrust and unbelief rise up, like 
pagan priests, to keep Thee out. What shall I do? I 
will flee to Thee, and to Thee will I pray: 

“The dearest idol I have known, 

Whate’er that idol be, 

Help me to tear it from Thy throne, 

And worship only Thee.” 


63 


11. MONKS AND MONASTERIES 

What shall we do to be saved? How shall 
we get right with God and have eternal life? 
“Believe in the Lord Jesus,” says the Bible. 
But that is such a simple answer that most 
people do not dare to accept it. It seems too 
easy. They feel that they must clo some¬ 
thing. They imagine that if they do a great 
many good deeds, and avoid doing any bad 
ones, then, because they are so good, God 
will like them and save them and take them 
to heaven when they die. 

If we could go back sixteen or seventeen 
hundred years and look around among the 
Christians of that age we should find thou¬ 
sands trying to get salvation that way. We 
should find them in the deserts, in the wild 
woods,* in mountain caves, under stone 
vaults built over them in such a way that 
they could never get out, on top of high pil¬ 
lars from which they never came down as 
long as they lived—all in the hope of pleas¬ 
ing God by their piety and atoning for their 
sins by their sufferings. Such men are called 
hermits. 


64 


And we should find others in regular 
houses, called monasteries; though this be¬ 
came common somewhat later. In the mon¬ 
astery each man had a little room of his own, 
called a cell, and there he spent his time 
(when he was not working) in prayer and 
holy meditation. He owned no property, not 
even a book or a pen or a bit of paper, for 
when he entered the monastery he gave up 
everything he had. Whatever he needed was 
given to him by the man in charge of the 
monastery. Even his connection with his 
family had been severed. He never “went 
home to see the folks,” nor did they come to 
see him. He could never get married or 
have a home of his own. He had left the 
world outside and lived with only one pur¬ 
pose—to save his soul. Such a man was 
called a monk. 

During the Middle Ages (from the Fifth 
to the Fiftenth century) thousands of mon¬ 
asteries were built in the various Christian 
countries. Each was organized under some 
“Rule,” written by some noted saint, which 
told them what they might do or not do. A 
monk belonging to one or the other of these 
was said to belong to this or that “Order.” 
Some of the most famous Orders were the 


65 


Benedictine, the Franciscan, the Dominican, 
the Augustinian. 

Each monastery was under the direction 
of an Abbot (Father), and he had absolute 
authority. No monk or group of monks had 
a right to oppose him or find fault with any¬ 
thing he did. Among the monks themselves, 
however, there was no rank or distinction. 
A monk who had been a prince before he 
came in was not to be honored or favored 
any more than one who had been a beggar. 

I have intimated that the monks not only 
prayed and meditated but also worked. They 
worked in the gardens and fields, erected 
churches and monasteries, made furniture 
and tools and utensils, copied books and 
looked after the poor and needy. Like the 
missionaries who had gone before them they 
showed the half savage people around them 
that it is better to love than to hate, better 
to forgive than to fight. They promoted cul¬ 
ture and civilization and lifted the masses to 
a higher level of life. 

We have spoken of the men, but there 
were also monasteries for women. They 
were called nunneries or convents, and the 
women were called nuns. The rules under 
which they lived were practically the same 
as those of the monks. 


Little Journeys. 3. 


66 


The idea underlying monasticism was not 
the Biblical one of salvation by faith, but 
rather salvation by good works. That was 
wrong. And yet God so overruled the wrong 
that a great deal of good came out of the 
monasteries. In time, however, they began 
to run down. The monks became careless 
about their lives. They took to eating and 
drinking like gluttons, and many of them 
became very immoral. In Luther’s time 
many of the monasteries were bad places for 
any man to live in. 

What shall we do to be saved? “Do good 
and believe in the Lord Jesus,” said monas¬ 
ticism. “Believe in the Lord Jesus and do 
good,” says the Bible. Luther put it this 
way: “Good works do not make a good 
man, but a good man does good works.” We 
are justified by faith, but faith must find ex¬ 
pression in a holy life. 

Test Questions. i. What was the difference be¬ 
tween a monk and a hermit? 2. Between an ordinary 
monastery and a nunnery? 3. What is meant by a mo¬ 
nastic Rule? 4. By a monastic Order? 5. By an Ab¬ 
bot? 6. Did the monks help or hinder the progress of 
civilization? 7. Did the moral life of the monasteries 
grow better or worse as time went on? 

Study Questions. 1. Mention three of the best things 
the monks did for the people. Which one do you think 


67 


was the best of all? Why do you think so? 2. Resolved 
that the monks did more harm than good to the spiritual 
life of Christendom. (Debate). 

For Private Devotion. Mt. 5. 20. Lord and Saviour, 
these lonely seekers after salvation put me to shame. 
Their earnestness, their self-surrender, their contempt 
of the world prove me frivolous and selfish and worldly- 
minded. Yet, when I view their good works and their 
holy lives in the light of Thy demands, and see that I 
must exceed even that—Lord, whither shall I flee? Be 
Thou my Saviour, and my righteousness. “Thou, O 
Christ, art all I want.” 



2. ARABIA 



69 


12. MOHAMMEDANISM 

Now for the South—away down into hot, 
sandy Arabia! 

Had people known, when baby Mohammed 
came to this world, that some day he would 
compel kingdoms and empires to notice him, 
they would not have forgotten the day, and 
even the year, when he was born. But they 
did not know—indeed, who does know the 
future of any baby? 

Mohammed is supposed to have been born 
in 570 or 571, but which it was we cannot 
tell. He was born in Mecca, one of the main 
cities of Arabia, said to be the hottest city in 
the world. It lies in a barren valley, about 
forty miles east of the Red Sea, and every¬ 
thing around it is so dead and dry that one 
cannot help wondering why anybody ever 
wanted to live there. 

At the bottom of this hot kettle among the 
hills the lad grew to manhood. As a camel 
driver, or foreman of a caravan, he traveled 
far and wide in his sandy homeland, became 
well acquainted with his countrymen, and 
met many Jews and Christians. From the 


70 

Jews and Christians he learned some of the 
great stories and doctrines of the Bible. 

At the age of forty he had what he thought 
was a revelation. He began to preach to his 
neighbors and told them that their gods, 
were no gods at all, that there is only one 
God, whose name is Allah, and that their 
idols were an insult to him. The Meccans 
laughed at the camel driver and his “revela¬ 
tion,” but when some began to listen to him, 
and his preaching began to interfere with 
Meccan business (for they made heaps of 
money on their idols) they got angry and 
decided to kill him. But somebody tattled, 
and he quietly slipped away. 

That was in 622, which the Mohammedans 
call the year of the Hejira (Hejira means 
flight), and from which they reckon the be¬ 
ginning of their era, just as we take the 
birth of Christ at the beginning of our era. 
Mohammed went to Medina, some 300 miles 
to the north. Here he found willing ears, 
and before long he organized an army and 
returned to Mecca. The war was short. The 
Meccans who had not been convinced by the 
words of Mohammed were quickly convinced 
by the sword. From there he marched to 
other places, and in seven years had all Ara¬ 
bia on his side—one united force. 


71 


Ten years after the Hejira Mohammed 
died. One hundred years later his followers 
had conquered everything bordering on the 
Mediterranean sea, east, west, and south, 
and were pushing up into France. It looked 
as though they were going to conquer all 
Christendom. But in 732, in the battle of 
Tours, they were defeated by Charles Martel 
and driven out of France. Later on they 
were driven out of Spain, and since then, 
except for Turkey, Europe has been rid of 
them. In other parts of the world, however, 
especially in Asia and Africa, they have 
made tremendous headway, and it is esti¬ 
mated that there are to-day about two hun¬ 
dred million Mohammedans in the world. 

Mohammed spoke highly of Jesus as a 
prophet, but denied that He was the Son of 
God. He misunderstood the doctrine of the 
Trinity and thought that the Christians wor¬ 
shiped three gods. This, he said, is idolatry, 
and the Christians are infidels, therefore kill 
them as fast as you can. The hatred against 
Christianity thus implanted has never died 
out, and for thirteen centuries the two re¬ 
ligions have faced each other as bitter en¬ 
emies. 

Mohammedanism is sometimes called Is¬ 
lam, which means “submission to God/’ The 


72 

Mohammedans are also called Moslems, by 
which they mean “true believers’’—in Mo¬ 
hammedanism of course. The teachings of 
Mohammed are contained in the Koran, 
which the Mohammedans revere as much as 
any of us revere the Bible. Let us read a 
few words out of it. 

“Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, honorable 
in this world and in the world to come, and 
one of those who approach near to the pres¬ 
ence of God . . . Christ the son of Mary is 
no more than an apostle . . . Jesus is no 
more than a servant . . . The Christians say, 
Christ is the Son of God . . . May God resist 
them . . . Kill them wherever you find them, 
and turn them out of that whereof they have 
dispossessed you . . . strike off their heads, 
until you have made a great slaughter 
among them . . . Those who fight in defense 
of God’s true religion [Mohammedanism] 

. . . he will lead them into Paradise . . . 
and there shall accompany them fair damsels 
having large black eyes; resembling pearls 
hidden in their shells . . . They who believe 
not shall have garments of fire fitted to them, 
boiling water shall be poured on their 
heads.” 

Test Questions, i. When and where was Mohammed 
born? 2. When did he die? 3. Tell what you know 


73 


about Mecca; 4. The Hejira; 5. The battle of Tours; 
6. The Koran. 7. What does Islam mean? 8. Moslem? 

9. Where has Mohammedanism flourished most? 10. 

10. What did Mohammed think of Jesus? 11. Of the 
Christian doctrine of the Trinity? 

Study Questions. 1. Any resemblance between the 
teaching of Mohammed and the Christian faith? 2. 
What deep differences? 3. Did Mohammed harm or 
help his countrymen? 4. Why was the battle of Tours 
one of the decisive battles of the world? 

For Private Devotion. Lk. 6. 27-28. Lord Jesus, 
does not Thy love extend to the Mohammedans too? 
Art Thou not yearning to save them also? Then what 
am I that I should hate them? Teach me rather to 
love them, and bless them, and seek their salvation. 


74 


13. THE CRUSADES 

Mohammed called the Christians infidels, 
and urged his followers to kill them. The 
Turks obeyed him better than any others, 
and when they got possession of Palestine 
they made life miserable for the Christian 
pilgrims who wanted to visit the tomb of 
Christ. They insulted them, beat them, im¬ 
prisoned them, and not a few they killed or 
sold into slavery. 

In 1081 a man by the name of Alexis Com- 
nenus came to the imperial throne in Con¬ 
stantinople. He tried to drive the Turks out 
of his dominion, but failed. Then he ap¬ 
pealed to the Pope, Urban II. The Pope 
replied by calling a great Council at Cler¬ 
mont, France, in 1095. Thousands of people 
came. The Pope himself was there and de¬ 
livered a great oration. He called upon the 
Franks (as the French people were called) 
to arm themselves and go out against the 
cruel Turks. After reciting some of the 
atrocities of the enemy—as the war makers 
always do, to stir up the hatred of the people 
and get them to fight—he said: 


75 


“Let the Holy Sepulchre of our Lord and 
Saviour, which is possessed by the unclean 
nations, especially arouse you . . . Enter 
upon the road of the Holy Sepulchre; wrest 
the land from the wicked race, and subject 
it to yourselves . . . Undertake the journey 
eagerly for the remission of your sins, with 
the assurance of the reward of imperishable 
glory in the kingdom of heaven.” 

The people were intensely excited. Some¬ 
body started the slogan, “God wills it!” and 
presently the whole multitude was shouting, 
“God wills it! God wills it!” The Pope now 
asked that each man should wear a cross on 
his coat, and from this the movement came 
to be known as a Crusade, or expedition of 
the cross (from the Latin word crux, cru- 
cis). 

A monk by the name of Peter, usually 
called Peter the Hermit, traveled about from 
place to place and helped to stir up the peo¬ 
ple. In a few months the excitement had 
spread to many countries, and in 1096 more 
than a million men went forth to drive the 
Turk out of the Holy Land. After horrible 
struggles they succeeded in storming Jeru¬ 
salem, and here they slaughtered so many 
Turks that it makes one shudder to read the 
official reports. And this they did in the 


76 


name of Jesus! They now established the 
“Kingdom of Jerusalem,” with the com¬ 
mander of the army, Godfrey of Boullion, as 
king. 

This kingdom covered all of Palestine, as 
it was in the time of Jesus, and a great deal 
more. But it did not long remain in the 
hands of the Christians, for the Turks did 
not go to sleep, and they had no intention of 
staying out of what they considered their 
own country. Fifty years after the First 
Crusade had started out there was need of 
a Second. Later on a Third went out, then 
a Fourth, and a Fifth. Historians usually 
speak of eight. One of these was the Chil¬ 
dren’s Crusade, in 1212, when many thou¬ 
sand boys and girls of the age of fourteen 
or fifteen left their homes in France or Ger¬ 
many and went out (on foot of course!) to 
the Holy Land, “not to kill but to convert” 
the Turks. 

With the exception of the brief success of 
the First Crusade, none of them accom¬ 
plished what they set out to do. For nearly 
two hundred years (1096-1272) the foolish 
efforts continued. Army after army went 
forth. Like huge billows they rolled out over 
the East, only to be dashed to bloody spray 


77 


against the power of the Turks. Several 
million crusaders lost their lives, and for 
generations all Europe was in turmoil. Great 
changes took place both in Church and State. 
The Pope gained vastly in power. So did the 
kings and the common people over against 
the despotic barons who had controlled both. 
Culture and refinement, after the manner of 
Italy, Constantinople, and other cultural 
centers in the East, began to appear in the 
homelands of the crusaders. Works of art 
and utility were brought home, new ideas 
and new wants arose, and commerce was 
greatly promoted. Thus France, Germany, 
England, and other countries rose rapidly in 
the scale of civilization. You see how both 
good and evil were mingled in the crusades 
—just as they are in almost everything else. 
But above it all God rules, guiding the course 
of events and bringing the best results pos¬ 
sible even out of the blunders that men 
make. 

Test Questions, i. What was the remotest cause of 
the crusades? 2. Name three men who did much to 
bring about the first crusade. 3. When and where was 
the first crusade started? 4. What bold promise did the 
Pope make to those who enlisted for the war? 5. How 
long did the crusades continue? 6. How many were 
there? 7. Mention two of the worst and two of the best 
results. 


78 


Study Questions, i. Do you suppose that Jesus ever 
would have said what Pope Urban II said at Clermont? 
Give reasons for your answer. 2. Were the Crusades 
really a Christian movement? Give at least three rea¬ 
sons for your opinion. 

For Private Devotion. Mark 16. 5-7. Lord Jesus, 
not Thy tomb, but Thyself would I worship; not mere 
forms in which there is no life, but Thee who livest 
forevermore. Grant me to walk with Thee daily, and 
to know that my Redeemer liveth. Grant me to love 
mine enemies, and to seek the salvation of those who 
know Thee not. Amen. 


79 


14. THE RISE OF THE POPE 

From the humblest beginnings, and 
through bloody persecutions, first at the 
hands of the Jews and then at the hands of 
the Gentiles, the Church of Christ rose to 
honor and power in the world. Like the 
Lord Jesus himself she “advanced in wisdom 
and stature, and in favor with God and 
men.” 

But quite early she began to differ from 
Him, for no sooner had persecution stopped 
than she began to reach out for honors and 
wealth and worldly power—something that 
Jesus never did. She said that He had 
chosen her to be His bride, and that made 
her vain. She said that He had given her 
the keys of Heaven, so that no one could get 
in unless she would open the gates, and that 
made her haughty. 

Her home was now in Rome, and she 
claimed that the bishop in Rome was the 
representative of Christ and the real ruler 
of the world. Everybody—kings and em¬ 
perors and all—must obey him. Listen to 
her own words: “The Roman church was 


80 

founded by God alone. The Roman bishop 
alone is called universal. He alone deposes 
bishops and reinstates them. He deposes 
emperors. A decree by him may be annulled 
by no one; he alone may annul the decrees 
of all. The Roman church has never erred, 
nor ever, by the witness of Scripture, shall 
err to all eternity.”* The Roman Catholics 
are still taught to believe that! 

About two hundred years after these as¬ 
tonishing words had been written Pope Bon¬ 
iface VIII (1294-1303), made a still more 
astonishing claim. For he said, “That there 
is only one holy Catholic and apostolic 
Church we are impelled by our faith to be¬ 
lieve and hold—this we do firmly believe and 
openly confess—and outside of this there is 
neither salvation nor remission of sins. . . 
We, moreover, proclaim, declare, and pro¬ 
nounce that it is altogether necessary to sal¬ 
vation for every human being to be subject 
to the Roman pontiff.” 

But did the popes ever make good their 
big claims, you ask? Indeed they did. They 
made some of the greatest kings in Europe 
get down on their knees before them; and if 

*From the Papal Dictate, written about the time when Gregory 
VII was Pope (1073—1085). The author of this daring document 
is unknown. 




81 


the people as well as the kings were disobe¬ 
dient they closed the churches and forbade 
the priests to officiate at weddings, or ad¬ 
minister the Lord’s Supper, or bury the 
dead. Many thousand people were burned 
alive because they would not believe what 
the Pope said or do what he commanded. 
Yes, the popes made good their claims. 

And then, away down here in 1870, the 
Church of Rome declared the Pope to be 
infallible, that is that he can make no mis¬ 
takes! To be sure, the idea is not that he 
never does, but that when he writes to his 
people to instruct them in their religious 
faith, then he never makes a mistake. 
Surely it is enough to ask any one to be¬ 
lieve that much, but I have an idea that most 
of the common people in the Church of Rome 
imagine that it means more than that, and 
suppose the Pope to be faultless and perfect 
at all times. 

What audacity in it all—a Pope who can 
make no mistakes; a particular church out¬ 
side of which there is no salvation; a church, 
furthermore, which has the keys of Heaven 
and can shut out any one whom she does not 
like! To such heights has the Church of 
Rome climbed. 



82 


Test Questions, i. Who were more cruel to the early 
Christians, the Jews or the Pagans? 2. Did the Church 
become more or less Christ-like after persecution had 
ceased? 3. What was the great claim of the Papal 
Dictate? 4. Of Pope Boniface VIII? 5. When was the 
doctrine of papal infallibility adopted, and what does 
it mean? 

Study Questions. 1. Point out four steps by which 
the Pope, or the Church of Rome, rose to supreme 
power; and about when each step was taken. 2. Which 
one of these steps do you consider the boldest? Why? 
3. Correct this statement: “The Roman Catholic Church 
teaches that the Pope never makes a mistake.” 

For Private Devotion. Lk. 22. 24-26. I thank Thee, 
O Lord, for my dear Lutheran Church, which is willing 
to serve, not dominate. Help me to appreciate the 
blessings of being a member in it, make me willing to 
do my part of the serving, and enable me to see that 
true service consists in winning souls to Christ, not in 
ruling over them. 


83 


15. THE POWER OF THE POPE 

When I told you what power the Pope had 
in former times—how he could rule over 
kingdoms and empires, and compel whole 
nations with big armies to obey him—you 
must have wondered how he managed it. 
How was it possible? How could one man 
do it? 

Well, first of all we must remember that 
such power does not come in a day. It grew 
very slowly through many centuries. And 
it grew very quietly too, out of the teachings 
of missionaries and monks and priests who 
told the people solemnly that the Pope is the 
representative of Christ, and that to disobey 
him is to disobey God. They told them too 
that unless they were members of the Roman 
Catholic church they could never go to 
heaven, but would be thrown right down to 
hell when they died, there to roast in roar¬ 
ing flames all through eternity. And the 
people believed it, for they had been told 
that it was a deadly sin to doubt anything 
the Church of Rome said. 



84 


Out of this belief the Pope forged two tre¬ 
mendous weapons for promoting his power 
still further. They were called Interdict and 
Excommunication. 

To be excommunicated meant to be cut off 
from membership in the Church, as a branch 
is cut off from a tree. Jesus said, “If a man 
abide not in me, he is cast forth as a branch, 
and is withered; and they gather them, and 
cast them into the fire, and they are burned,” 
and the priests told the people that to be cut 
off from the Church of Rome meant the 
same thing. That is what made excommuni¬ 
cation such a dreaded weapon. First of all, 
it meant terror here in this present life, for 
nobody was allowed to give shelter, food, or 
clothing to an excommunicated person; and 
when this life was ended—then hell for ever 
and ever! 

That is the way an individual offender was 
treated. And if there were many of them— 
the whole population of a city or a country, 
for example—then the Pope would use the 
other weapon, the Interdict. That means 
that all the churches in that city or country 
would be closed, and the priests would not 
be allowed to serve the people in the usual 
way until they repented and the Interdict 
was lifted. Listen to a man who apparently 


85 


saw what he tells about. It was in Nor¬ 
mandy, France, in 1137. “The people were 
forbidden to enter the churches for the pur¬ 
pose of worshiping God, and the doors were 
locked. The music of the bells was silenced 
and the bodies of the dead lay unburied and 
putrefying, striking the beholder with fear 
and horror/' Such was the power of the 
Pope. 

Sitting there upon his throne in Rome, 
with such weapons at his disposal, he was 
more powerful than the ruler of any worldly 
empire ever had been. Neither Cyrus, nor 
Alexander the Great, nor Caesar Augustus 
had half the power the Pope had, for while 
they too governed great empires and ruled 
over many kings and kingdoms, they had 
no control over the souls of men. The Pope 
on the other hand claimed that he could de¬ 
cide the enternal destiny of each and every 
human being, that he had both temporal and 
spiritual power at the same time. What an 
awful responsibility such power put upon 
the man who held it! Think of the good he 
could have done with it, had he used it 
rightly. Think of the wars he could have 
prevented, for example. But I am sorry to 
say that the popes did not always use their 


86 


power in the best way, and sometimes they 
used it in a very bad way. 

Test Questions, i. Did the power of the Pope come 
suddenly or slowly? 2. What is the dilference between 
Excommunication and Interdict? 3. What was the 
greatest hardship laid upon the people of Normandy in 
the interdict of 1137? 4. Compare the power of the 

Pope with that of the greatest worldly rulers. Which 
was the greater? Wherein was it greater? 

Study Questions. 1. Would Jesus ever have laid an 
Interdict on people? Give reasons for your answer. 2. 
Which was the more fearful weapon, the Interdict or 
Excommunication? Why? 

For Private Devotion. Is. 14. 12-17. Worldly great¬ 
ness may never be mine, but I pray Thee, Lord, to help 
me see that pride may rule the small as well as the 
great, and that pride bolts the door of the heart and 
keeps Thee out. Save me from this deadly sin, and 
keep me humble in Thy presence as well as among my 
fellow men. Amen. 


87 


16. HOW ROME BECAME THE HEAD¬ 
QUARTERS 

I am not sure that this chapter belongs at 
this point in my story. Really I do not know 
exactly where it belongs, so it might as well 
go in here as anywhere else. 

The reason for putting it in at all is that 
I suppose you have begun to wonder by this 
time why we talk so much about Rome and 
the Church of Rome. Why not Jerusalem, 
or Corinth, or Alexandria, or some other 
Christian center where there was a bishop? 
In other words, how and why did Rome be¬ 
come so prominent in the history of the 
Church? 

Well, there are two big reasons for it. First 
of all, Rome was the most important city 
in the world, and had been for hundreds of 
years. It was the capital of the Roman em¬ 
pire, and people were accustomed to look in 
that direction. There was the emperor, and 
there was the imperial government. There 
were the great statesmen, orators, poets, 
artists, and philosophers. From Rome came 
the great armies that conquered all, and the 


88 

laws that all must obey. The wealth and 
power and beauty and culture of the civilized 
world were somehow closely connected with 
Rome. For centuries the eyes of the nations 
had been turned toward Rome, and when the 
Church rose on the ruins of the empire it 
naturally got the attention which the im¬ 
perial government had enjoyed. 

Another reason is that the Apostle Peter 
was supposed to have lived in Rome for a 
time, and was said to have been crucified 
there. Whether that is true or not nobody 
knows, but tradition says so and the people 
believed it. Now Jesus had said to Peter, 
“Thou art Peter [a rock], and upon this rock 
I will build my church. . . I will give unto 
thee the keys of the kingdom of heaven: and 
whatsoever thou shalt bind on earth shall be 
bound in heaven; and whatsoever thou shalt 
loose on earth shall be loosed in heaven;” 
and the bishops of Rome claimed that they 
were the successors of Peter and had inher¬ 
ited the keys, so that they had all the power 
and authority which the apostle Peter was 
supposed to have had. It took them a long 
time to get the people to believe that, for the 
Church Fathers all said that Jesus did not 
mean the man Peter (what a shaky founda¬ 
tion he would have been for the Church of 


89 


Christ!), but he meant the faith which 
Peter confessed. But the bishops of Rome 
kept right on until they finally convinced 
people that it was as they said—that Peter 
was the greatest of all the apostles, that he 
was the foundation of the Church, that he 
personally had received the keys of heaven, 
that he had suffered martyrdom in Rome, 
that the bishop of Rome, and no other bishop, 
was the true heir and successor of Peter. 

If some one should ask you why Rome is 
so important in Church history you might 
therefore give these two reasons: First, it 
was the capital of the Roman empire, and 
secondly, it was the home of the most ambi¬ 
tious and clever bishops in Christendom. 


Test Questions, i. Give the two main reasons why 
Rome became so prominent in the Church. 2. Is it cer¬ 
tain that Peter lived and died in Rome, or is it only a 
tradition? 3. Jesus said, “Upon this rock will I build 
my church.” What did He mean by the “rock” a) Ac¬ 
cording to the Church Fathers? (b) According to the 
bishops of Rome? 

Study Questions. 1. Suppose the idea of the Church 
Fathers had prevailed, and not the idea of the Roman 
bishops, what difference would it have made (a) To the 
bishops? (b) to Rome? (c) To the rest of the world? 
2. What motives seem to have caused the Roman bish¬ 
ops to explain the words of Jesus the way they did? 


90 


For Private Devotion. Heb. n. io; 13. 14; 12. 22. 
From worldly ambition and temporal glory I lift my 
eyes to Thee, dear Lord. Keep me ever mindful of the 
fact that I am but a pilgrim and a stranger here, and 
ever thankful for the vision of the heavenly Jerusalem. 


91 


17. THE INQUISITION 

Suppose somebody should try to persuade 
people to see if they could not get the Sultan 
of Turkey to come over here with an army 
and destroy the Republic, so that he, and not 
the President, would be the manager of our 
affairs—what would the authorities in Wash- 
ington do? Why, they would take that man 
and try him to find out if he really had done 
it, and if they found that he had they would 
declare him a traitor and hang him. 

Now think of the Church instead of the 
Republic, the Pope instead of the President, 
and a heretic instead of a traitor, and you 
are ready for the story of the Inquisition. 

You know what a heretic is, do you not? 
It is a man who does not believe exactly 
what the Church teaches. A man who said 
that the Pope and the priests were not tell¬ 
ing the truth was called a heretic, and they 
said that if it is a horrible crime to betray 
one's country, it is a thousand times more 
horrible to betray the Church. If a traitor 
should be put to death, they said, a heretic 
should certainly not fare any better. And so 


92 

they established a court called the Inquisi¬ 
tion, and if any one was suspected of heresy 
they would bring him before this court and 
try him; if they found him guilty they would 
kill him. And they would not do it in the 
easiest way either, but in the most painful 
way they could think of—they would choke 
him to death, or break his bones with a club, 
or burn him alive. I do not mean that the 
priests did it. They tried him and turned 
him over to the government, and the govern¬ 
ment did it for them. The cruelty was in¬ 
tended to scare others, so that no one else 
would dare to say anything against the 
Church. 

When we say Inquisition we usually 
think of Spain, for that is where it was 
deadliest. The Spanish Inquisition began 
work in 1481, but such things do not spring 
up all at once. They are like trees whose 
roots you can follow down and down to very 
small beginnings. In the year 316 Constan¬ 
tine made a law against certain heretics of 
his time; in 382 Theodosius ordered another 
kind of heretics to be killed; in 769 Charles 
the Great instructed the bishops of his em¬ 
pire to see that the priests taught the people 
nothing the Pope did not want them to 


93 


teach; in 844 Charles the Bald ordered his 
bishops to inquire into the religious opinions 
of the people, to see that they were accord¬ 
ing to the teachings of the Church; in 1148 
the Church, at the Synod of Verona, cursed 
all heretics and ruled that a second offense 
should be punished with death; and in 1481, 
as we have seen, the real work of death be¬ 
gan in Spain. 

One year after the Spanish Inquisition 
had been established, 298 heretics had been 
burned in Seville alone; and the Roman 
Catholic historian Mariana assures us that 
during the same year at least 2,000 were 
burned in the two archbishoprics of Seville 
and Cadiz. When Napoleon put an end to 
the horrible thing, in 1809, the figures had 
run up to 31,912 for Spain alone. How many 
poor victims had perished in other lands we 
do not know, but we know that they were 
very numerous. 

What an awful record for the Church of 
Christ! Can you imagine Jesus giving His 
consent to anything like that? And yet it 
was done in His name, and men who claim 
to be His disciples defend it! One of the 
inquisitors said that God himself began the 
Inquisition in the garden of Eden when He 


94 


questioned Adam and Eve about their dis¬ 
obedience. Another one called it “a substi¬ 
tute to the Church for the original gift of 
miracles exercised by the apostlesand one 
of the Popes, Paul IV (1555-1559), said that 
the Inquisition was founded by the inspira¬ 
tion of the Holy Spirit! 

Test Questions. i. What is usually meant by the 
word heretic? 2. What was the Inquisition? 3. Why 
do we always think of Spain in connection with it? 4. 
What is the difference, if any, between it and persecu¬ 
tion? 5. Give some account of the history of the In¬ 
quisition. 6. What did Pope Paul IV say of the In¬ 
quisition ? 

Study Questions. 1. It has been said that Constantine 
was the originator of the Inquisition. What do you 
think of the statement? 2. Some people who approved 
the awful institution were really kind-hearted and really 
loved goodness and truth. How then could they do such 
a horrible thing? 

For Private Devotion. Mt. 23. 29-31. I thank Thee, 
O Christ, for Thy faithful witnesses of former times. I 
thank Thee too that those terrible times are no more. 
But should they return, and should I be called upon to 
give my all for Thee, Lord, make me faithful unto 
death, even as they were. 


95 


18. THE FALSE FOUNDATION 

Did you ever stop to watch the erection of 
a great building—a church for example? 
The materials are strewn about in wild con¬ 
fusion. Stones of many shapes and sizes lie 
here and there, higgledy-piggledy, and you 
wonder if order ever can come out of such 
disorder. But one by one they are brought 
in and placed where they belong. Little by 
little the walls go up and the building takes 
shape, till at last it is complete, a glorious 
temple of the Most High. 

But this building is only a symbol of the 
real Church, which is spiritual. “Ye also, as 
living stones, are built up a spiritual house,” 
says the apostle Peter to his Christian 
friends. That is the true Church, the real 
Temple of God, which shall endure when the 
last material temple in this material world 
is no more. 

But the stones in an ordinary building 
must have a foundation to rest upon. So too 
must these “living stones,” these human 
souls. They must have something to rely on, 
something to trust, something upon which 


96 

they can rest their faith. What is that some¬ 
thing? The apostle Paul speaks of “the 
household of God, being built upon the foun¬ 
dation of the apostles and prophets.” In 
other words, the Bible. That is the founda¬ 
tion upon which the Church of Christ must 
be reared. And upon that foundation the 
early Christians did rear it—upon that only. 

Of course a foundation must itself have 
something to rest upon, and we cannot help 
asking upon what the Bible rests. What is 
the rock underlying that foundation? Paul 
replies, “Other foundation can no man lay 
than that which is laid, which is Jesus 
Christ.” Upon Him then does the Bible rest, 
and upon Him therefore must the truly 
Christian Church be reared. Nothing better 
could be desired, for He is the Rock of Ages, 
the Alpha and the Omega, the beginning and 
the end. Men may err, but He can be 
trusted. Opinions change and theories pass 
away, but He abides. 

And yet to a very large extent the church 
of Rome is built on another foundation. It 
seems impossible, but it is true. Let us see 
how it happened. Many things in the Bible 
are “hard to be understood, which the igno¬ 
rant and unsteadfast wrest . . . unto their 
own destruction,” says Peter. Therefore it 


97 


became necessary for some one who was not 
ignorant and unsteadfast to interpret the 
Bible and save the simple-minded from mis¬ 
understanding it. Such interpreters arose 
early, and are known as Church Fathers. 
They were usually good men and earnest, 
consecrated Christians. When papacy grew 
up, the Popes and the Church Councils nat¬ 
urally became the highest authority. What 
such men said about the meaning of difficult 
passages in the Bible was accepted as cor¬ 
rect. It was looked upon as the truth, and to 
deny it was to choose falsehood rather than 
truth. In other words, the opinions of the 
Church Fathers, the Popes, and the Church 
Councils came to be looked upon as having 
just as great value and authority as the 
Word of God itself. 

Do you see what it means? The founda¬ 
tion of the Church was being extended out 
into the marshland of human opinion. The 
great spiritual temple had been started on 
the solid Rock of the Word of God, but little 
by little it was reaching out over the sand. 
That is how it came to pass that the Church 
of Rome rests on two foundations: the Holy 
Scriptures on the one hand, and human au¬ 
thority on the other. 


Little Journeys. 4 . 


98 


Test Questions, i. What is the Building spoken of in 
this chapter? 2. What is the Foundation upon which it 
is built? 3. What is the Rock upon which the Founda¬ 
tion rests? 4. Upon what, outside of the Bible, is the 
Church of Rome built? 5. How did it happen that that 
Church was built on two foundations? 

Study Questions. Make a drawing to show (a) The 
Building, (b) The Foundation upon which it rests, (c) 
The Rock upon which the Foundation rests, (d) The ex¬ 
tra foundation, at the side of the other, upon which the 
Church of Rome rests in part. Write “Church,” “Foun¬ 
dation,” “Rock,” “Sand” where these words belong. You 
may not be very good at drawing, but that does not 
matter. You need not make a fine picture, only bring 
out the idea. 

For Private Devotion. Mt. 7. 24-27. Before Thee, 
O Lord, would I search my heart. Upon what do I 
build my own faith: on the Rock or on the sand; on the 
Word of God or the words of men? Grant me to know 
and trust Thee as the Rock of Ages, which neither flood 
nor tempest can overturn. 


99 


19. REVIEW OF THE MIDDLE AGES 

The Early Period, covering about five hun¬ 
dred years, was a time of Formation. The 
Church took form. Her faith, her hope, and 
the aim of her efforts became fairly well 
defined. When people ask what she stood 
for, what she believed, and what she tried to 
do in the world, she could give a pretty defi¬ 
nite answer. 

But during the following ten centuries, 
called the Middle Ages, because they lie be¬ 
tween the Early Period and the Modern 
Period, she underwent great changes. The 
history of the Middle Ages is largely the 
story of these changes. 

The faith formulated by the Church Fa¬ 
thers was preached to the Gentiles of Europe 
by a group of consecrated and self-sacrific¬ 
ing missionaries. They were monks or 
priests, usually very loyal to the bishop of 
Rome, and great believers in monasticism. 
Between the fourth and the ninth centuries 
they won practically all of Europe to the 
Church of Rome. 


100 


While they were engaged in this, Mo¬ 
hammedanism sprang up in Arabia. Like a 
whirlwind the followers of Mohammed swept 
over the southern and eastern shores of the 
Mediterranean Sea, then, through Spain, up 
into Europe, conquering wherever they went. 
Burning with hatred against Christianity, 
they seemed to threaten all Christendom, 
but were finally beaten back in the battle of 
Tours (732). Later on the Crusades at¬ 
tempted to drive them out of the Holy Land, 
but without success. 

During the Middle Ages, Rome, once the 
proud capital of the Roman Empire, became 
the prouder capital of Christendom. The 
bishop of Rome became the acknowledged 
head (Papa, or Pope) of the Church, and his 
power increased enormously. When Papacy 
was at its height the Pope claimed more 
power than any other human being had ever 
had, in any land or any age, for he claimed 
authority over kingdoms and empires every¬ 
where, as well as power to determine the 
destiny of human souls for time and eternity. 
And these claims were ably safeguarded by 
the “Holy Inquisition,” the terrible blood¬ 
hound of Papacy. 

We shall see later on that there was a 
bright side to Papacy, and that a great deal 




101 


of good was achieved while the Church of 
Rome was in control, but- this was sadly 
overbalanced by the evils that crept in dur¬ 
ing the Middle Ages. 

Monasticism threw a shadow over the 
home by making marriage appear as a scarce 
holy institution; the Crusades caused mil¬ 
itarism to root itself more deeply than ever 
before; the Pope climbed to such heights of 
power as could not be safely entrusted to any 
human hands; the Bible doctrine of salvation 
by grace was overshadowed by the man¬ 
made doctrine of salvation by merit; the Vir¬ 
gin Mary, the saints, the Popes and the 
priests formed as it were a cordon around 
the Redeemer, so that people could not reach 
Him at all except through their mediation; 
the Church of Rome claimed a monopoly on 
the means of salvation, and Rome became a 
sort of tollgate on the way to Heaven. As 
an innocent little girl may become a vain and 
worldly woman, so the Church, once a hum¬ 
ble child of God, became haughty and un- 
christianlike. 

The cause of it all was the false founda¬ 
tion upon which the Church was so largely 
built. The first Christians built wholly on 
the Rock of the Holy Scriptures; the Church 
of Rome built more and more on the opinions 


102 


of the churchmen. Farther and farther she 
reached out over the marshes of human au¬ 
thority, and the farther she went, the more 
did the miasma of the human heart permeate 
and poison her spiritual life. Salvation lay 
in a return to the Rock. That came with the 
dawn of the Modern Period, and marked the 
beginning of a new order of things. 

Test Questions. i. What countries were opened to 
the gospel between the fourth and the ninth centuries? 
2. Did the early missions promote or retard monas- 
ticism? 3. What did Mohammedanism have to do with 
the Crusades? 4. Why is the battle of Tours considered 
as an important event? 5. What was the inquisition? 
6. Why did the Church go wrong during the Middle 
Ages ? 

Study Questions. 1. Mention three of the great 
movements of the Middle Ages. Which one of them do 
you think made the deepest impression on Christendom? 
Give reasons for your opinion. 2. Show that the false 
foundation upon which the Church was being extended 
during the Middle Ages was the cause of her deforma¬ 
tion. 

For Private Devotion. Ps. n. 3. Lord, I thank Thee 
for the solemn warnings of the past. I have seen men 
flounder and perish because they forsook Thy Word; 
yet methinks I have heard a prayer out of the heart of 
the Middle Ages: “Lead me to the Rock that is higher 
than I.” Grant me, Lord, to join in that prayer, that 
I too may experience, in my daily life, the blessed answer. 


THE MODERN PERIOD 


From the Fifteenth Century to the Present Time, 

Nearly 500 Years. 












/ 




















GERMANY IN THE TIME OF LUTHER. 












20. OUT OF THE MARSHES. 


The story of how we got back to the true 
Foundation is very largely bound up with the 
life story of a man who was born in Eis- 
leben, Germany, in 1483. At baptism he was 
named Martin. His father's name was Lu¬ 
ther. Martin was raised in the marshes 
upon which the Church of Rome was so 
largely built: that is, he was brought up to 
believe that the opinions of the leading 
churchmen were just as true as the Word of 
God. 

He received a good education. His father 
wanted him to be a lawyer and he was pre¬ 
paring for that profession. He made splen¬ 
did progress, and his many friends said that 
he had a great future. But still he was 
never really happy. He knew that before 
God he was a sinner, and this made him rest¬ 
less and uneasy. He was afraid of God, 
afraid of Jesus, and terribly afraid of death. 

At the age of twenty-one, just as life was 
opening up to him in all its glory, he sud¬ 
denly left everything and gave himself en- 

107 


108 

tirely to the task of finding peace with God. 
For this purpose he entered the monastery 
at Erfurt and became a monk. Here he 
fasted and prayed and tormented himself 
till he almost died from the effort, but peace 
would not come. 

Two years later he became a priest, and a 
few years after that he was professor of the¬ 
ology in the university of Wittenberg. In 
1511 he gave a course of lectures on the Epis¬ 
tle to the Romans, and this led him to see 
that the way of salvation laid out in the 
Bible was not the way upon which most of 
the people walked. He saw that according 
to the Bible we are justified before God not 
by the good deeds we do, but by faith in 
Jesus Christ. 

In 1517 a priest by the name of Tetzel 
came around and told people that they could 
buy the forgiveness of sins by paying so and 
so much money. Luther was horrified. He 
did not believe that the Pope knew what 
Tetzel was doing. He thought about it and 
prayed over it a great deal, hoping all the 
time that somebody would put a stop to the 
evil practice. When nobody did he decided 
to invite the learned men of the neighbor¬ 
hood to get together and discuss the affair. 
To help them along in this he wrote out a set 


109 


of propositions (or “theses,” as they were 
called) and tacked them to the church door 
—as men usually did in those days when 
they wanted a public discussion of some im¬ 
portant question. There were no less than 
ninety-five of these Theses on the sheet. 

Luther was still a good Roman Catholic. 
He was still a monk, a priest, a professor of 
theology, and unmarried. He did not mean 
to say anything against the Pope or the 
Church, though he knew that many of the 
churchmen were bad men. What he really 
meant to do was to defend the Pope and try 
to purify the Church. No doubt he meant 
what he said in the Theses, but if the learned 
men could show that he was mistaken he was 
willing to yield. And he wrote his Theses in 
Latin,' so that only the learned could under¬ 
stand them, for he did not believe that the 
common people should trouble their heads 
about them until everything was perfectly 
clear and sure. 

But the Theses were soon translated and 
printed; and away, they fluttered, like twit¬ 
tering birds, in all directions. “In fourteen 
days,” says Luther, “they ran through all 
Germany. When all the bishops and doctors 
were silent and nobody ventured to bell the 
cat . . . then I became famous, because at 


110 


last some one had appeared who dared to 
take hold of the business.” 

With small type the Ninety-five Theses 
could be printed on a common postal card, 
yet they shook all Christendom! The com¬ 
mon people rejoiced, for Luther had pointed 
the way to Christ and Christian freedom; 
but the churchmen, the politicians, and the 
money-makers were furious, for the Theses 
disturbed their business and weakened their 
hold on the people. In 1520 the Pope de¬ 
clared Luther a heretic, and said that he 
would cut him off from the membership of 
the Church if he did not recant. When Lu¬ 
ther got the letter—what do you suppose he 
did with it? He put it in the fire! 

The monk had turned his back forever to 
the marshland with its false foundation. 

Test Questions. i. When and where was Luther 
born? 2. Give some account of his education. 3. Of 
his religious experiences before he became a priest. 3. 
Of his experiences as a professor of theology. 5. What 
were the Ninety-Five Theses, and why were they writ¬ 
ten? 6. Who took offense at them, and why? 

Study Questions. 1. Mention three of the most impor¬ 
tant events in the life of Luther, as given in this chap¬ 
ter. Which one of them would you call the most im¬ 
portant of the three? Why? 2. Why did the Ninety- 
Five Theses cause such an upheaval? 


Ill 


For Private Devotion. Ps. 61. 2. How the great 
heart of Luther must have trembled as he felt the foun¬ 
dation beneath him give way! For he had trusted it 
from infancy. But I have seen Thy hand, O heavenly 
Father, guiding him to solid ground, and I see that in 
guiding him Thou hast opened the way for us all. 
“Guide me, O Thou great Jehovah.” 




112 


21. AWAY FROM ROME 

To burn the Pope’s letter was of course 
rebellion against the Pope and the Church of 
Rome, and the penalty for that was death. 
Hundreds of men had been burned alive for 
less, and when Luther was summoned to 
appear before the Emperor and the Imperial 
Diet (a kind of parliament) in the city of 
Worms, he knew full well that he was liable 
to be killed. 

His friends begged him not to go, but he 
replied, “If I am summoned by the Emperor 
I am summoned by the Lord ... If He does 
not wish to save me, my life is a little thing 
compared with that of Christ, who was slain 
in the most shameful way ... I will not 
flee, much less will I recant. May the Lord 
Jesus strengthen me in this.” 

The Diet convened in April, 1521. On the 
sixteenth Luther arrived. The city was in a 
turmoil of excitement. His friends, eager to 
encourage him, crowded around him night 
and day. Whenever he did get a little while 
to himself he spent much of it in prayer. 


113 


And then how he did pour out his soul unto 
the Lord! Listen to him: 

“0 Thou my God ! Stand Thou by me, my 
God, against all the reason and the wisdom 
of the world . . . Lord, where art Thou? 
Thou, my God, where art Thou? Come! 
come! I am ready to lay down my life, 
patient as a lamb. For the cause is holy: it 
is Thine own. I will not let Thee go—no, 
not for all eternity. That resolve is fixed in 
Thy holy name. The world must leave me 
free in my conscience; and though it were 
thronged with devils, and this body, which is 
the work of Thy hands, be cast forth, trod¬ 
den under foot, cut to pieces, Thy word and 
Spirit remain good to me. And it is only the 
body! The soul is Thine. It belongs to 
Thee. It will abide with Thee eternally. 
Amen! 0 God, help me. Amen!” 

On the seventeenth he was summoned. It 
was four o’clock in the afternoon. He was 
kept waiting in an outer room for nearly 
two hours before he was called in. On a 
throne on the farther side of the room sat 
the Emperor. Near him sat a number of 
dignitaries, magnificent in their elegant 
court costumes. There were princes and 
prelates from Spain, Italy, and Germany. All 
the power of the Church and the Empire 


114 


were in evidence, though the Church was not 
officially represented. On a table near by 
lay about twenty books which Luther had 
written. An official asked him sternly if he 
would take back what he had written, or if 
he meant to stand by it? Luther replied 
briefly, in a low tone of voice, and begged 
humbly for a little more time to think it 
over. The Emperor conferred with those 
who sat nearest him, and then granted twen¬ 
ty-four hours. 

At the same hour the next afternoon he 
stood again before the Diet, and again he 
was asked if he would recant. He spoke 
with a clear voice now, so that all could hear 
him, and delivered a great speech, first in 
German, then in Latin. He ended by saying, 
“Unless I am convinced by Scripture or by 
right reason (for I trust neither in popes nor 
in councils, since they have often erred and 
contradicted themselves)—unless I am thus 
convinced, I am bound by the texts of the 
Bible, my conscience is captive to the Word 
of God, I neither can nor will recant any¬ 
thing, since it is neither right nor safe 
to act against conscience. God help me. 
Amen.” 

The Spaniards hissed, the Germans ap¬ 
plauded, the Diet was in a tumult. Looking 


115 

back to that moment when Luther stood 
there in the presence of the Roman Church 
and the Imperial Diet, Carlyle, the great 
English thinker, declares it to be “the great¬ 
est moment in the modern history of men/’ 
No wonder the Lutheran Church likes to cel¬ 
ebrate the anniversary. 

Test Questions, i. What was the Diet of Worms 
and where did it convene? 2. Who presided? 3. What 
did Luther do on each of the three days, April 16th, 
17th, and 18th? 4. On which of these days did he 

make his final statement to the Diet? 5. Describe the 
Diet a) As it appeared when Luther was first called 
before it, b) Just after he had made his final statement. 

Study Questions. 1. What was the bravest thing that 
Luther said or did in connection with the Diet of 
Worms? Give three reasons for your opinion. 2. Our 
lesson gives at least three proofs of Luther’s faith in 
God. Point them out. 

For Private Devotion. Mt. 10. 32. It may never fall 
to my lot to confess Thee before the mighty ones of the 
world, but to confess Thee before my neighbors and my 
own kindred may be hard enough. O Lord, give me 
grace and courage to confess Thee bravely and win- 
somely wherever I am, that those whom I meet may be 
drawn to Thee. 


116 


22. ON SOLID GROUND. 

A few days after he had stood before the 
Diet, Luther was escorted out of Worms. 
Suddenly a gang of men surrounded him and 
—made him a prisoner! Don't feel alarmed. 
They were friends, not enemies. They “cap¬ 
tured" him just to protect him, and for pro¬ 
tection they brought him to the Wartburg 
castle, hoping to keep him there till the dan¬ 
ger outside was gone. He spent about ten 
months among them, using most of his time 
for translating the Bible into German, and 
then bade them farewell. In returning to 
the dangers outside he argued that if God 
meant to use him any longer He would pro¬ 
tect him. 

About three years later he married Cath¬ 
erine von Bora, a former nun, established a 
home in Wittenberg, and resumed his regu¬ 
lar duties as pastor and professor. But du¬ 
ties piled higher than ever before. Only a 
giant could do the work he did. He lectured 

at the university, preached wonderful ser- 

• 

mons in the church, wrote letters and hymns 
and pamphlets and books, comforted the sick 


117 

and the dying, advised kings and princes 
about the aftairs of government, wrote a 
wonderful little Catechism for boys and girls 
and another one for pastors and teachers, 
prepared a new order of worship for the 
evangelical Church, befriended the friend¬ 
less, sheltered the homeless, and gave fa¬ 
therly guidance to troubled souls. Mean¬ 
while, as the family grew, he shared with his 
wife the labors of the household, and found 
time to play with his children and chat with 
his friends. 

He had turned his back forever upon the 
Church of Rome. He “trusted neither Popes 
nor Councils,” for both had failed him. Then 
what did he trust? The Bible—the Bible only. 
But what does the Bible teach ? What, after 
all, did Luther believe? What was the exact 
difference between the Lutheran faith and 
the Roman Catholic faith—for that Church 
also believed in the Bible? Such questions 
were buzzing in numberless minds when the 
Emperor returned to Germany for another 
Diet (1530). This one was to be held in 
Augsburg, and there the Lutherans would 
probably have to give an account of the faith 
that was in them. At least they wanted to, 
so they asked Melanchthon, Luther’s dearest 
friend and one of the most learned men of 


118 

the day, to draw up a statement for them 
that could be presented at the Diet if cjesired. 
He did this, and did it so well that Luther 
himself was delighted with the work. On 
the 30th of June it was read before the Diet 
of Augsburg, and came to be known as the 
Augsburg Confession. It still stands as the 
great statement of the Lutheran faith. 

But it is sometimes called by its Latin 
name, and there is an interesting story con¬ 
nected with that which I think you should 
know. Augsburg was founded by the Ro¬ 
mans about fourteen years before Christ, 
while Caesar Augustus (the man Luke 
speaks of in the second chapter of his gos¬ 
pel) was emperor of Rome, and in honor of 
him they called it Augusta. A long time 
after that, when the Germans got control of 
the country, they changed the name to Augs¬ 
burg, but the learned people still used Latin, 
and they continued to call it Augusta. Now 
Melanchthon wrote his confession of faith in 
Latin, and of course it would not be called 
the Augsburg Confession in that language. 
The Latin for it is Confessio Augustana. 

Luther did not pretend to be a saint, nor 
did he want his followers to glorify his 
name. “Don't call yourselves Lutherans," 
he pleaded, “call yourself Christians." Christ 


119 


was all in all to him. He preached Him, 
prayed to Him, worshiped Him, and would 
gladly have died for Him. Yet we have no 
objection to being called Lutherans, for one 
can not be a true Lutheran without being a 
true Christian. It really means the same 
thing. 

Many joys and many sorrows crowded 
into the busy life of Luther, and when we 
think of the enormous burdens he had to 
bear we cannot wonder that “his strength 
was broken at fifty.” We wonder more that 
he was able to labor so successfully for 
twelve years more. In the winter of 1546, 
in the town in which he had been born, Mar¬ 
tin Luther passed quietly away, leaving the 
world to mourn the departure of one of the 
most remarkable men that ever lived. He 
had not started a new religion, or founded 
a new Church. He had led the way back to 
the pure gospel faith of the early days. 

Test Questions. i. Tell of Luther’s “arrest” and 
“prison life.” 2. Whom did Luther marry, and where 
did they live after their marriage? 3. Mention three 
of the most important kinds of work that Luther did. 
4. The Augsburg Confession: Who wrote it, and why? 
When and where was it read to the Emperor? 5. 
Give the history and meaning of the word Augustana. 
6. When and where did Luther die? 7. How does he 
rank among the great men of history? 


120 


Study Questions. Why is it impossible to be a true 
Lutheran without also being a true Christian? 2. Is it 
true that Luther founded a new Church? Prove your 
answer. 

For Private Devotion. Lk. 6. 47-48. Lord, I thank 
Thee for Martin Luther—for the example of his dili¬ 
gence, his fearlessness, his humility, and his devotion to 
Thee and Thy Word. But most of all because he 
“digged and went deep, and laid a foundation upon the 
Rock.” 

“On Christ the solid Rock I stand, 

All other ground is sinking sand.” 


121 


23. THE ORDER OF WORSHIP 

Have you ever thought about the order of 
worship in a Lutheran church, how beautiful 
it is? It is a work of art, with everything 
in its place and a place for everything—the 
opening hymn, the confession of sins, the 
prayer for pardon, the assurance of forgive¬ 
ness, the reading of the Scriptures, the 
preaching of the gospel, and so on. There is 
order and plan in it from beginning to end. 

But it was not always so. In the early 
days, among the first Christians, everything 
was simple and informal. There was no fine 
church with a great pipe organ and a trained 
choir. The pastor did not wear a “minis¬ 
ter’s coat,” nor did he have to make a lot of 
announcements ‘about Sewing Circles and 
Ladies’ Aids and Brotherhoods and Ice 
Cream Socials, for there were none. Maybe 
there wasn’t even a minister, as we think of 
ministers. Going to church meant simply 
that a few friends would get together in 
some safe place—perhaps a home, or in the 
woods, or in a cave among the mountains— 
and there they would worship as best they 



122 

could while perhaps a troop of Roman sol¬ 
diers were hunting for them to kill them be¬ 
cause they would not worship the emperor. 

‘‘On the day called the Day of the Sun,” 
says Justin Martyr, who died for his faith 
in the year 166, “there is a gathering in one 
place of us all who live in the cities or in the 
country, and the writings of the apostles or 
of the prophets are read as long as time al¬ 
lows. Then, when the reader has ceased, the 
president speaks to us and urges us to imi¬ 
tate these excellent things. Afterward we 
all rise at once and offer prayers.” 

But when persecution finally came to an 
end, the leaders of the Church began to plan 
a more orderly form of worship. The very 
place of worship was built in harmony with 
the great teachings of Holy Scripture; a spe¬ 
cial style of dress was adopted for the pas¬ 
tor, so that he would not have to follow the 
fashions of the world; hymns and set 
prayers were composed; the great events in 
the life of Christ were commemorated by 
special festivals; the Church Year was 
planned, and appropriate Bible passages 
chosen for each Sunday or other holiday. 

During the Middle Ages the simple form 
of the early days blossomed into a glory of 


123 


beautiful details. There was Preparation, 
Confession, and Introit, Kyrie Eleison and 
Gloria in Excelsis, Collect and Epistle, Grad¬ 
ual, Alleluia, Tract, Sequence, and Gospel, 
Creed and Antiphon, washing of hands and 
sprinkling of Holy Water, swinging of cen¬ 
sers and burning of incense, bowing and 
kneeling and praying and chanting—all in a 
certain, definite order, by priests and can¬ 
tors, deacons and choir boys, each in his 
place and each with his specified duties. The 
very robes, specially for the priests, received 
careful attention, as to color, design, and 
material. The whole was impressive with 
pomp and circumstance. 

All this would naturally reflect the teach¬ 
ings of the Church, which, as we have seen, 
were only partly Biblical. When Luther 
found his way back to the Holy Scriptures 
as the only authority in matters of faith, 
and there took his firm stand, he could of 
course not feel at ease with this. And so he 
found it necessary to prepare a new Order 
of Worship, in harmony with the simple 
teachings of the Holy Scriptures. In doing 
this he did not reject everything that had 
grown up through the centuries; he only 
pruned away what was unbiblical, and gave 



124 


room for the preaching of the gospel, and for 
the worshipers to take a more active part. 

But Luther did not go into details and 
insist that all churches follow exactly the 
same form. He merely pointed out certain 
fundamentals that ought to be observed in 
all orderly public worship, and left his fol¬ 
lowers free to work out the details. And so 
it came to pass that in each country where 
the Lutheran faith found footing a some¬ 
what different order of worship developed. 
.There is no objection to this, but in our 
country, where so many different nationali¬ 
ties have met, and where the different forms 
of worship come so close together, it is apt to 
seem rather confusing at times. Many peo¬ 
ple are therefore beginning to hope that 
some day we shall be able to get together and 
work out a “Common Service” that all Lu¬ 
therans will use. 

Test Questions, i. When was the Order of Worship 
most complicated, during the time of persecution or dur¬ 
ing the Middle Ages? 2. Explain the reason for this. 
3. Precisely what did Luther do to the Order of Wor¬ 
ship, and why did he do it? 

Study Questions. Was the Order of Worship which 
developed during the Middle Ages an improvement upon 
that of the earlier days? Give reasons for your opinion. 


125 


For Private Devotion. Ps. ioo. In all the workings 
of creation I see that Thou art a God of Order. The 
changing of the seasons, the daybreak and the sunset, the 
snowflake and the blossom, the billowing grain fields 
and' the star-lit heavens, all proclaim it. Surely, then, 
Thou wilt have us worship decently and in or'der, com¬ 
ing before Thee in holy array. But grant, O Lord, that 
our worship may not be less fervent because it is or¬ 
derly. Into its beautiful harmony let us enter with mel¬ 
ody in our hearts. 


126 


24. THE COUNTER REFORMATION. 

Have I left the impression that the Church 
of Rome was altogether bad, with nothing 
good in it? That will never do. That is not 
true. For the fact is that some of the 
noblest characters in history, like St. Augus¬ 
tine, St Francis of Assisi, John Tauler, 
Thomas a Kempis and many others, were de¬ 
veloped within that Church; through her 
efforts all Europe was converted from pa¬ 
ganism to Christianity; great books were 
written, wonderful cathedrals were built, 
universities were founded, and barbarism 
was replaced by civilization. 

No, no, it was not all bad. But neither 
was it all good. Along with the good there 
was much evil, and this became worse and 
worse, till people could not endure it any 
longer. It was this which drove Wiclif and 
Huss and Luther and thousands of others 
who hungered and thirsted after righteous¬ 
ness out of the Church. 

At last the leading churchmen began to 
see that something would have to be done, 
or all Christendom would turn away from 


127 


Rome. Some of them read Luther’s writings 
and could not help feeling that he was right. 
They organized Evangelical churches loyal 
to Rome, as if they thought they could hold 
on to the Pope with one hand and to Luther 
with the other. The Emperor himself 
pleaded for reform within the Church. 

One of the defenders of Rome who did not 
love Luther was a young Spaniard by the 
name of Loyola. While in a war against the 
French he was badly wounded in the foot, 
and had to stay in the hospital a long time. 
There he devised a new religious Order, to be 
known as the Society of Jesus. His follow¬ 
ers are known as Jesuits. When a man joins 
the Jesuits he takes a solemn oath to obey his 
superior without question, no matter what 
he may tell him to do. They say that “the 
end justifies the means,” that is, you may 
do anything, even murder people, if the re¬ 
sult of it will be good. Some of the Jesuits 
were good men and great missionaries to the 
heathen, but the movement worked out badly 
and a great deal of harm was done by it. 
Yet it helped greatly to strengthen the 
Church of Rome. 

Finally the Pope (Paul III) called a Coun¬ 
cil of leading churchmen to meet in Trent, 


128 

just north of Italy, about seventy-five miles 
northwest of Venice. The Council met in 
1545 and was at work for many years. It 
was a great event in the history of the Ro¬ 
man Church. It was her big opportunity for 
a thorough house cleaning, for confessing 
her sins and returning to the Word of God 
with a whole heart. 0 if she had done that! 
It would have satisfied the devout in all lands 
and brought peace and unity to Christendom. 

But she missed her opportunity. It is 
true that she insisted on cleaner morals and 
a higher education on the part of the priests, 
but she did not return to the early faith in 
the Word of God. Instead of that she said 
•that she would stay by her own ideas more 
steadily than ever, and would have no fellow¬ 
ship with those who accept the Bible as the 
only rule of faith and conduct. Two of the 
laws enacted by the Council of Trent may be 
expressed briefly in the following words: 

1. The teachings of the churchmen 
(Church Fathers, Popes, and Councils) are 
to be accepted and believed just as much as 
are the Holy Scriptures. 

2. The Holy Scriptures should be used 
only in the Vulgate version and interpreted 
by the Church only, not by private individ¬ 
uals. 


129 


What is the Vulgate version? It is the 
Bible in Latin, as translated into that lan¬ 
guage by St. Jerome in the latter part of the 
fourth century. If this second rule is en¬ 
forced literally, only those who can read 
Latin will be able to read the Bible; and 
even at that they will have to ask the Church 
what it means before they dare to believe 
what it says. Translations into living lan¬ 
guages are permitted, to be sure, but they 
are translations of a translation (the Vul¬ 
gate) and are therefore not quite like “our 
Bible/’ 

The movement we have been talking about 
in this chapter is known as the Counter 
Reformation; that is a Reformation within 
the Church to match the Reformation that 
had broken away from the Church. But as 
you see, it was not a Reformation at all. 

Test Questions. i. Mention three good things that 
came out of the Church of Rome. 2. If there was so 
much good in it, why did so many good men turn away 
from it? 3. Who was Loyola, and what did he accom¬ 
plish? 4. What was the Counter Reformation? State 
the two famous laws adopted by the Council of Trent. 

Study Questions. 1. The Counter Reformation: a) 
What was it? b) What brought it about? c) How did 
it affect the Church of Rome and the progress of the Ref¬ 
ormation? 2. Compare the two laws adopted by the 


Little Journeys. 5. 


130 


Council of Trent, as given in our lesson. Which one do 
you think looks most dangerous? Why? 

For Private Devotion. 2 Chr. 7. 14. Like Pharaoh 
of old Thy Church was called upon to repent, but with 
her as with him the repentance was forced. It did not 
spring willingly and humbly from the heart, for the 
men of the Church, like Pharaoh in Egypt, had hardened 
their hearts against Thee and Thy Word. Lord Jesus, 
let me learn of Thee, for Thou art meek and lowly in 
heart. 


131 


25. THE THIRTY YEARS WAR. 

The enmity between the Catholics and the 
Lutherans was very bitter. In 1529 the Diet 
of Spires made laws that were so unfair that 
the Lutherans protested. For that they 
were called Protestants. In some places ter¬ 
rible massacres took place and thousands of 
Protestants were killed. In 1608 they or¬ 
ganized for self-defense and formed the Ev¬ 
angelical Union. The following year the 
Catholics organized the Catholic League. 
Things were taking an ugly turn. It looked 
like preparation for war, and as sure as we 
prepare for war, war will come. 

In 1618 it broke out in Bohemia, where 
the Protestants rose up in revolt against 
their unjust Catholic ruler. The imperial 
army, which of course was Roman Catholic, 
had two great commanders, Tilly and Wal¬ 
lenstein, and the Protestants were helpless 
against them. 

The scene of the war shifted from Bo¬ 
hemia to southwest Germany and from there 
to the north. During the Danish period of 
the war, 1625-1629, the king of Denmark 


132 


was the leader of the Protestants. By the 
Peace of Llibeck, 1629, he was compelled to 
withdraw from the struggle and to promise 
to take no further part in it. 

The war, however, continued, and for a 
time the Protestant cause seemed hopeless. 
Wallenstein had been made “Admiral of the 
Baltic.” His plan was to build a great fleet 
and control the sea as well as the land. That 
meant danger to Sweden as well as to the 
other Protestant countries, for Sweden too 
had adopted the Lutheran faith. Love of 
country as well as love of the gospel there¬ 
fore caused Gustavus Adolphus, the king of 
Sweden, to enter the war, and in 1680, at 
the head of thirteen thousand men, he en¬ 
tered Germany. At the battle of Leipsic 
(1631) he did what no one else had been able 
to do: he defeated Tilly. 

In a later battle Tilly was killed, and Wal¬ 
lenstein, who had been discharged, was in¬ 
duced to take his place. This was a bad 
move, for Wallenstein did not seem to care 
for anything but his own glory, and his sol¬ 
diers were a terror to friend and foe. Like 
a swarm of grasshoppers they ravaged 
whatever country they entered, and left it 
barren and poor. 

While the Swedes were in southern Ger- 


133 


many Wallenstein invaded Saxony, the cen¬ 
tral part of the country. Gustavus Adol¬ 
phus promptly followed him, and on the 
sixth of November, 1632, the two armies met 
at Lutzen. A terrible battle followed which 
proved to be one of the most important in 
the whole war. The king of Sweden lost his 
life, but his army gained the victory. Six¬ 
teen years more the weary war dragged on, 
but the Protestants usually had the upper 
hand. This period of the war, known in his¬ 
tory as the Swedish period, came to a close 
in 1635. 

In that year France entered the war, and 
the so-called Swedish-French period began. 
It was a sordid and selfish period. Not re¬ 
ligious freedom now, but land grabbing and 
national glory became the aim of most of the 
fighters. As usual in war, the fighting na¬ 
tions kept on and on, like a pack of angry 
dogs, till they were so tired out they could 
not keep it up any longer. At last, in 1648, 
the horror ended in the Peace of Westphalia. 

And the results? After thirty years of 
continual fighting, what would you expect? 
All the warring nations were bleeding and 
weary, but Germany most of all. Her man¬ 
power was gone, her cities were ruined, her 


134 


fields were barren. Before the war Augs¬ 
burg had a population of 80,000; at the close 
of the war it had 18,000. The population of 
the German empire at the outbreak of the 
war was thirty million; at the close it was 
less than thirteen million. Yet there was a 
brighter side to it, in spite of the tragedy. 
The Peace of Westphalia provided that Prot¬ 
estant princes within the Empire were to 
have the same rights and privileges as Ro¬ 
man Catholic princes, and foreshadowed the 
day when liberty of conscience would be 
extended to all the people. 

Test Questions, i. How did we come to be called 
Protestants? 2. When did the Thirty Years’ War begin, 
and when did it end? 3. Give a brief account of each 
of the three periods. 4. Which was the most heroic 
period? 5. The least heroic? 6. Name three of the 
great generals. 7. Which were the two most important 
battles ? 

Study Questions. 1. What would probably have hap 
pened a)to Sweden, b) to the Reformation as a whole 
if the Swedes had not entered the Thirty Years War!' 
2. What was the worst evil of the war? 3. What seems 
to you the best result of the war? Why do you think so? 

For Private Devotion. Mt. 24. 35. I saw the sea 
surging around a rock in a mad attempt to break it 
down. And the rock was Thy Word, and the sea was 
humanity in the tempest of war. For thirty years the 
billows battled, but the Rock remained unmoved, un- 


135 


harmed, as ever before. Lord Jesus, I thank Thee for 
freedom to come to this Refuge. In the sea I would 
perish: on the Rock I am safe. 

“Rock of Ages, cleft for me, 

Let me hide myself in Thee.” 


136 


26. EXPLORING THE BIBLE AGAIN. 

By the Peace of Westphalia (1648) re¬ 
ligious freedom was secured. The bondage 
of a thousand years was finally broken, and 
the seeker after salvation could approach 
his Redeemer directly, without asking per¬ 
mission of priest or Pope. He could take the 
Word of God in his own hands and read it 
with his own eyes, in his own house. The 
Bible, not the Pope, was the highest author¬ 
ity in matters of religion. 

But what does the Bible really teach? 
Just what are we to do to be saved? What 
becomes of us when we die—where do we 
go? What good does baptism really do? And 
precisely what do we receive at the Lord’s 
Table? 

The same old questions recurred that peo¬ 
ple asked in the early days of the Church. 
The Popes and the Church Councils had an¬ 
swered them all, but their answers had not 
proven good. “Let the Bible alone,” said 
these leaders to the people, “it is too deep for 
you. We will tell you what it means. Fol- 



137 


low us.” The people believed and followed 
them, but they led them astray, and the work 
had to be done all over again. The questions 
had to be answered once more. 

That was the task to which the churchmen 
of the Reformation now had to turn their 
attention. Luther, Melanchthon, Chemnitz 
and others began the work, boldly and 
bravely, in the sixteenth century, but they 
were pioneers and there was more to do than 
they could finish. The theologians of the 
next century continued the work and went 
into details in all directions. And seldom 
have men plunged into a great undertaking 
more earnestly than they did. Not a book 
of the Bible, not a chapter or a verse was 
left unstudied, nor was a single question 
willingly left unanswered—if the Bible gave 
an answer to it. Their aim was orthodoxy, 
which means correct teaching according to 
the Word of God, and the age in which they 
labored has been called the Age of Ortho¬ 
doxy. 

The Bible is like a great country with 
mighty mountain ranges and green valleys 
and wandering streams and fertile fields. 
The way to Heaven lies right through this 
country, yet for a thousand years it had been 



138 

closed to all but a few. Now it was open 
again and everybody was free to come in. 
But it was a vast country, so vast indeed that 
the very greatness of it bewildered, and 
there was danger of failing to find the Way. 
That is why the work of the theologians was 
so important. They went through the coun¬ 
try and explored it and mapped it. 

Some historians complain of them that 
they were all too human. They got so inter¬ 
ested in the map that they hardly noticed the 
beautiful flowers and the green meadows 
and the billowing grain fields. Their 
preaching was apt to be dry and tiresome, 
for they made so much of their dogmas that 
they almost forgot the Bible itself. “They 
put their dogmas where Luther put the Bi¬ 
ble/’ says one writer, and another one says 
that “Christian faith was dismissed from its 
seat in the heart, where Luther had placed 
it, to the cold regions of the intellect.” Then 
too they often disagreed with each other, got 
into bitter quarrels over holy things, and 
spoke of one another in the ugliest terms they 
could find. One of them called another one 
“the patriarch of heritics,” a third called a 
fourth “a volcano constantly vomiting fire 
and mud,” and it was said of still another 
that “the Holy Spirit seems to have appeared 


139 

to him in the form of a raven rather than of 
a dove.’’ Of course this would affect the com¬ 
mon people, and the result was that the 
Church became a barren wilderness where 
the fruit of the Spirit could not develop. 

Yet in spite of their failings they did 
much for which we may well thank God. 
They went through the Bible from cover to 
cover, as explorers go through a new country, 
and mapped it as it never had been mapped 
before. They cleared away the underbrush 
from the King’s Highway, and showed with 
unmistakable clearness that we are saved, 
not by the Pope, or by our good deeds, but 
by faith in the Lord Jesus. The wilderness 
—well, that reminds us of a wonderful Bible 
promise: “The wilderness and the dry land 
shall be glad; and the desert shall rejoice, 
and blossom as the rose. It shall blossom 
abundantly, and rejoice even with joy and 
singing.” In the next chapter we shall see 
the fulfillment of the promise. 

Test Questions, i. What blessings came out of the 
Peace of Westphalia? 2. Why did the teachings of the 
Bible have to be examined once more? 3. What do you 
think of the Bible knowledge of the early Protestant 
theologians? 4. What is to be regretted about their 
work? 5. For what should we thank God? 6. What 
does the word orthodoxy mean? 


140 


Study Questions, i. Precisely what was the work of 
the Protestant theologians, and why did it have to be 
done? 2. Why are disputes about religion less common 
and less bitter now than they were in the sixteenth and 
seventeenth centuries? 

For Private Devotion, i Cor. i. io. As the spokes 
in a wheel are farther apart the farther we follow them 
out from the hub, so are we from one another, the far¬ 
ther we are from Thee. Dear Lord, be Thou the center 
of our affections, and the true bond of our unity. Make 
us patient with those whose opinions may differ from 
ours, and thankful for the good Thy servants have done 
in the past. Amen. 




141 


27. WHEN THE WILDERNESS 
BLOSSOMED. 

For hours and hours the train rolls along 
through a sandy desert. Not a tree or a 
blossom in sight, only sagebrush and sand. 
Then a line of green appears in the distance, 
and presently you roll into a veritable para¬ 
dise of blossom and bloom. There are lovely 
little homes, and velvety lawns, and wonder¬ 
ful orchards. The air is heavy with the per¬ 
fume of the flower beds, and musical with 
the humming of the honey bee. How did it 
all happen? Irrigation did it. From yonder 
snow-covered mountains great streams, of 
sparkling water have been led through 
wooden channels to this part of the desert, 
and here is the result. 

It is a picture of the Church. In the pre¬ 
ceding chapter we saw how the desert de¬ 
veloped, soon after the Reformation, and 
how, to a large extent, the spiritual life died 
out. The Holy Mountains—the Prophets, 
Apostles and Evangelists—were clearly in 
sight, and the life-giving streams of the gos¬ 
pel were there, but the people were far away. 


142 

In the wilderness of lifeless teachings, and 
parched by the hot winds of controversy, 
they were perishing from thirst. Then a 
few men arose and gave themselves to God. 
“He that believeth on me,” said Jesus, “from 
within him shall flow rivers of living water,” 
and they believed on Him. They became 
channels through which the blessed waters 
were brought to perishing souls, and the 
result was as prompt as when earthly water 
is brought to an earthly desert. Where the 
gospel was preached the people gathered, 
and as grass springs up in the well watered 
meadow, so out of the ground of their hearts 
holy aspirations began to appear. Soon the 
desert blossomed as the rose, the wilderness 
became a paradise. 

Who were the men through whom it was 
accomplished. There were many, but four 
of them, at least, we should know, namely: 
John Arndt (1555-1621), Philipp Jakob 
Spener (1635-1705), August Hermann 
Francke (1663-1727), and Paul Gerhardt 
(1606-1676). 

Arndt, we are told, “lived more in heaven 
than on earth.” He is best known as the 
author of “The True Christianity,” a book 
which ought to be in every home, and which 


143 


“has probably never had its equal as a popu¬ 
lar book of devotion. 1 ” 

Spener has been called “a soul in whom 
Christ had indeed formed his image.” Tho- 
luck says of him that “if ever, to any servant 
of God, there has been granted the privilege 
to efface every stain of sin, as far as man can 
see, and of arraying himself in the beauty 
of holiness, it has been granted to Spener.” 
He is called the father of Pietism. 

Francke is best known as the founder of 
institutions of mercy which have become 
famous throughout Christendom. At the 
age of nine he asked his mother for a little 
room where he might be alone with God, and 
there he often prayed, “Dear Lord, direct 
my whole life, from first to last, to Thy 
glory, and to Thy glory only.” 

Gerhardt was the great hymn-writer of 
that age. Julian says that “next to Luther 
himself Gerhardt was the most gifted and 
popular hymn-writer of the Lutheran 
Church,” and another authority calls him 
“the greatest hymn-writer of Germany, if 
not indeed of Europe.” 

All of these men were Germans, but their 
influence went far beyond the homeland. 
The movement in which they were so active 



144 


is known as Pietism, and Spener is usually 
thought of as its originator. But in its best 
form it can easily be traced to Arndt, by 
whose “True Christianity” both Spener and 
Francke were deeply impressed. 

Some people will tell you that Pietism was 
largely fantastic and unsound, and that is 
true. But it was not the fault of Spener or 
Francke, still less of Arndt or Gerhardt. 
Impurities pour into every stream, and the 
deadly mushroom may spring up in the 
shadow of the finest fruit. We must not 
judge Pietism entirely by its faults. Ortho¬ 
doxy too was beset with faults, but in each 
there was much for which we should thank 
God with a glad heart. 

Test Questions, i. Name four great men mentioned 
in our lesson. 2. By what would you remember each 
one of them? 3. In what country did they live? 4. Was 
their influence limited to the homeland, or did it go 
farther? 5. What name is given to the movement in 
which they were so active? 6. Who is usually called 
the father of the movement? 

Study Questions.. 1. Comparing the spiritual with the 
earthly, describe as fully as you can a) The wilderness, 
b) The Holy Mountains, c) The Mountain Streams, d) 
The Channels, e) The results of the “irrigation.” 2. 
What was Pietism? Why did it come? What effect 
did it have? 


t 


145 


For Private Devotion. Ps. 65. 9-13. When my own 
inner life is parched and barren, dear Lord, wilt Thou 
not visit the earth and water it? O enrich it out of 
Thine abundance, make it soft with showers, and cause 
the wilderness to blossom and bear fruit. Amen. 






•y 









f : / 


ii* 


i " « 


t ’ « 




k 


4 


the spread of the reformation. 








147 


28. THE SPREAD OF THE REFORMA¬ 
TION. 

Did you ever drop a pebble into a pool of 
water, then wait and see what would happen? 
The pebble made a hole in the surface, but 
instantly the water rushed in from all sides 
and filled it up. A little hill was formed; 
this sank back and formed a ring. The ring 
rolled out in all directions, growing larger 
and larger as it went. Another little hill 
rose up, and another ring was formed, fol¬ 
lowing the first; then another, and another, 
and another. Each ring was a little circular 
billow, and upon each little billow the sun¬ 
light played and the sky was reflected. 
There was life and laughter and joy as you 
watched the play. 

Such was the Reformation. Luther flung 
his gospel message right into the sea of 
humanity. It was a stone hewn out of the 
quarry of God’s Word, and it made a tre¬ 
mendous splash as it fell. Quickly the rings 
went out, farther, and farther, and farther 
—away out to the uttermost ends of Ger¬ 
many, and still farther—into Switzerland, 


148 

France, and Italy, Poland, Austria, and Bo¬ 
hemia, Denmark and England, Norway and 
Sweden, rugged old Scotland, and far-away, 
snow-covered Iceland. 

Thus far it went before the end of the 
century in which Luther did his mighty 
deed, but it did not stop at that. The billow¬ 
ing circles went right on, and are still going, 
still bringing spiritual freedom and gospel 
gladness wherever they go. There is not a 
civilized country to-day where the Lutheran 
faith is not preached. There are Lutherans 
even in Spain, the home of the deadly Inqui¬ 
sition. There is a Lutheran church right in 
Rome, not far from where the Pope lives, 
and there are Lutherans in China and Japan, 
India and Persia, Africa and Madagascar, 
Borneo and the Hawaiian Islands. The 
rings have encircled the world! 

Do you remember the decayed old stump 
out there in the water? We wondered what 
would happen when the rings reached that. 
What did happen? Not much of anything, 
as far as the stump was concerned. It 
swayed a little, but did not move. That 
stump was like the Church of Rome. It also 
rocked a little as the billows dashed against 
it, but not a great deal. It tried to reform, 
but could not. The motion did not lift it 


149 


much. It stayed right where it was, and is 
still there. 

And perhaps you remember how John 
flung a stone into the water too, and Ulrich 
also? And each stone started a series of 
rings of its own that grew larger and larger 
till they met the other rings and dashed 
against them. Then what criss-crossing of 
billows, what rushing and splashing hither 
and thither, till the whole pond was a-glitter 
with the excitement! 

Now, those boys represent real historical 
characters—John Calvin and Ulrich Zwingli, 
both of whom lived at the time of Luther. 
Each had a stone to throw, and each one 
threw it. The result was that the Reforma¬ 
tion movement broke up into various sects 
that dashed madly against one another in 
wildest confusion. The people who cling to 
the stump, because it does not move, feel 
greatly amused over this. They say that the 
disorder proves that the Reformation is of 
the devil. But beyond the disorder is a 
higher order. Beyond it all is God, and His 
truth will not perish. It was that which 
started the stir, and it is He who will purify 
the waters and bring salvation to all who 
trust in Him. 


150 


Test Questions, i. How many countries are mentioned 
in our lesson as having been affected by the Reforma¬ 
tion while Luther was still living? IIow far has the 
Reformation movement gone since that time? 3. How 
did Calvin and Zwingli affect the Reformation? 4. 
How did the Reformation affect the Church of Rome? 

Study Questions. 1. Why did the Reformation spread 
so rapidly and so far? 2. Why did it have so little 
effect on the Church of Rome? 

For Private Devotion. Is. 55. 10-13. How glorious, 
O God, is Thy Word, and how precious Thy promise 
of its triumph. Prosper it, Lord, in my own heart, in 
my home and my neighborhood, my country and the 
world beyond it. Replace the thorn of greed with the 
fir-tree of helpfulness, and the brier of hate with the 
myrtle of peace throughout the world. 


151 


29. THE WHIRLPOOL OF MODERN 

CULTS. 

While in Tacoma, Washington, a few 
years ago, I went out to Point Defiance Park 
one day and walked to the end of the path. 
There, some ninety feet below, Puged Sound 
glittered and glistened in the sunlight. The 
tide was coming in, pouring a mass of water 
through the Narrows. The silence of the in- 
rushing ocean was awe-inspiring. Here and 
there dangerous looking eddies and whirl¬ 
pools developed. Two strong men in a boat 
labored for half an hour to reach the shore 
against the current, but finally gave it up. 
A few weeks before, a young man had lost 
his life in a similar attempt. 

After a while I returned to the city. While 
sauntering down one of the streets I hap¬ 
pened upon a small bookstore. I stepped in 
and sat down in front of a bookcase con¬ 
taining perhaps a hundred volumes. There 
was a Bible and a Roman Catholic prayer 
book, Ingersoll’s Lectures and a copy of Lu¬ 
ther’s Small Catechism, volumes on Chris- 


152 

tian Science, New Thought, Mysticism, Spir¬ 
itualism, Russellism, Theosophy, Atheism, 
and so on. Never before had I seen so many 
different books in so small a bookcase. As 
I looked at them I remembered the Narrows 
at Point Defiance Park, and the inrushing 
currents, and the dangerous' whirlpools. 
Here was something similar, only it was in 
the realm of mind instead of matter. There 
I was looking into a current of water, here 
into a current of thought; there at material 
whirlpools, here at a whirlpool of cults and 
creeds. 

Where do they come from, these currents 
of thought, these cults and creeds of to-day? 
People seem to imagine that they are new 
and have sprung up right here in our own 
country, or in Europe, but that is not true. 
Where do the Puget Sound currents come 
from? They come from the ocean. But 
there they have surged, for ages and ages, to 
and fro, and at some time or other have 
washed the shores of islands and continents 
thousands of miles away. So with these 
others. We call them modern, but they are 
really not modern at all. Most of them are 
ancient, and some of them have come out of 
far away heathen lands—out of India, Per¬ 
sia, Egypt—the same old errors that wor- 


153 


ried the Church in her infancy; now they 
are here again, claiming to be the latest rev¬ 
elation of God. 

A few examples will show what I mean. 
In India, long centuries ago, men said that 
“all is God, and God is all. Matter is an illu¬ 
sion [Maya], and mind is the only reality. 
All the suffering in the world is due to an 
illusion of the mind, and all we need to do to 
be saved is to get out of the illusion.” Now 
the same old heathen doctrine turns up in 
our own country under the name of “Chris¬ 
tian Science,” and multitudes are carried 
away by it. “New Thought” teaches that 
underneath all our thoughts and failings we 
are all divine, and that all we need to do is 
to let the “Real Self,” the “God that is hid¬ 
den in each of us,” come forth and rule the 
heart. That also is an ancient heathen doc¬ 
trine. “Theosophy” is older than the Scribes 
and the Pharisees. It teaches that Wisdom 
is the Saviour of the world, and that if we 
only knew enough we should all be good and 
do right and thus be saved. They all speak 
beautifully of Christ, but it is not the Christ 
of the New Testament. They do not like to 
think of us human beings as “lost and con¬ 
demned creatures,” neither do they like to 


154 

think that He redeemed us “with His holy 
and precious blood, and with His innocent 
sufferings and death.” Christ crucified is to 
them, as He was to the Jews and the Gentiles 
of Paul’s day, a stumbling block. 

But not all of the modern cults come out 
of heathendom. Some of them come “out of 
the Bible,” taking what they like, interpret¬ 
ing it to suit their wishes, and leaving out 
the rest. Jesus foresaw it all, and warned 
us to beware. “There shall arise false 
Christs, and false prophets,” He said, “and 
shall show great signs and wonders, so as to 
lead astray, if possible, even the elect.” 

Some people have a habit of running 
around from one sect to another, listening to 
this and to that, to see which they like best. 
It is a dangerous practice, and they usually 
end up in confusion or unbelief. Suppose 
you were to plant a beautiful flower in some 
part of your garden, then dig it up and move 
it to some other part, then to another, and 
still another—what would happen to your 
plant? It would die. And so will faith, if 
it is not left in peace to root itself firmly in 
the Word of God. 


Test Questions, i. Mention some of the “modern” re¬ 
ligious cults. 2. Are they really modern, or are they 


155 


ancient? 3. From where have they come? 4. From 
what heathen country has “Christian Science” drawn 
much of its teaching? 5. How do the modern cults use 
the Bible? 6. Is the habit of “listening to all to find the 
best” a good or a dangerous habit? 

Study Questions. 1. Why are there so many different 
religious ideas in the world? 2. What is the best you 
can do, for yourself and others, in the midst of these 
cults and creeds? 

For Private Devotion. 1 John 4. 1. For all young 
people we pray Thee, Lord Jesus, that they may not be 
enticed away by false doctrine. “They are weak; do 
Thou strengthen them with Thy power. They walk 
through a world of dangers; do Thou guide them ac¬ 
cording to Thy counsel. They are exposed to various 
temptations; do Thou help them to fight faithfully and 
to gain the victory.” Amen. 


156 


30. THE LUTHERAN CHURCH IN 

AMERICA. 

At last our “little journeys” have brought 
us to our own beloved homeland. . With this 
lesson we put our feet on American soil. 

In 1638 there were fifty Lutherans in this 
country. A hundred years later (1738) 
there were five thousand; two hundred years 
later (1838) there were seventy-five thou¬ 
sand ; to-day there are over two million. 

The first Lutherans who came did not 
come from Germany but from Holland. 
They settled in what is now the state of New 
York. They were not allowed to build a 
church, or have a pastor, or even read a 
Lutheran sermon to a gathering in one of 
their homes. Peter Stuyvesant, the gov¬ 
ernor, so ruled. 

The first book ever translated into the lan¬ 
guage of the American Indians was Luther’s 
Small Catechism. It was translated by the 
Swedish pastor, John Campanius, who did 
all he could to bring the Indians to the Lord 
Jesus. It was published by the great and 
good Count Zinzendorf. 


157 

The first Lutheran churches built here 
were built by the Swedes. They built them 
like forts, to protect themselves against the 
Indians. But they never had occasion to use 
them for protection, for they treated the 
Indians with Christian kindness and justice, 
and were never molested. 

Let us get a little closer to these pioneer 
Lutherans. What kind of people were they? 
For after all, that is more important than 
numbers and buildings and great wealth. 
Let Bancroft, the noted historian, answer 
the question. Of the Swedes he says: “They 
cherished the calm earnestness of religious 
feeling; they reverenced the bonds of family 
and the purity of morals; their children, 
under the disadvantage of want of teachers 
and of Swedish books, were well instructed. 
With the natives they preserved peace.” 

Of the German Lutherans, he gives this 
beautiful account: “In January, 1734, they 
sailed for their new homes. The majesty 
of the ocean quickened their sense of God’s 
omnipotence and wisdom; and as they lost 
sight of land, they broke out into a hymn to 
His glory. The setting sun, after a calm, 
so kindled the sea and sky, that words could 
not express their rapture, and they cried out, 


158 

'How lovely the creation! How infinitely 
lovely the Creator!’ ... In February a 
storm grew so high that no sail could be set; 
and they raised their voices in prayer and 
song amid the tempest; for to love the Lord 
Jesus as a brother gave consolation.” 

Near the end of the eighteenth century a 
great religious awakening took place in Nor¬ 
way, under the influence of a devout layman 
by the name of Hauge. In 1840 one of his 
noblest friends, Elling Eielsen, gathered a 
number of "awakened” countrymen in Wis¬ 
consin and organized what afterwards be¬ 
came the Hauge Synod. Like the Swedish 
and German pioneers, these Norwegians 
were earnest and sincere Christians, and it 
is remarkable that the Lutheran Church in 
America is not so much the child of the 
formal church organization in Europe as of 
a deep spiritual awakening which took place 
in the Old World, first in one country, then 
in another. 

After a while the churches began to or¬ 
ganize themselves into synods. The Minis- 
terium of Pennsylvania came first. It was 
organized in 1748, under the leadership of 
the famous Muhlenberg. Others came later. 
In 1848 there were twenty-two synods, and 


159 


by 1906 the number had climbed to sixty- 
seven ! 

Naturally the Swedes would want a Synod 
of their own. So would the Germans, the 
Norwegians, and all other nationalities. In 
some cases several sprang up within the 
same nationality. That is how there came 
to be so many synods. 

Gradually it appeared that there were too 
many. They overlapped and interfered with 
one another, and people began to talk about 
uniting. In 1917 three big Norwegian syn¬ 
ods united to form the United Norwegian 
Lutheran Church, and the following year 
forty-five synods, mostly of German origin, 
united into The United Lutheran Church in 
America. In this way the number has been 
considerably reduced, and many good peo¬ 
ple are looking forward to the time when 
there shall be but one Lutheran Church in 
America. 

Test Questions, i. Show the growth of the Lutheran 
Church in America. 2. From what country did the 
first Lutherans come? 3. Who was the first Lutheran 
pastor, and from what country did he come? 4. What 
book was first translated into an American Indian lan¬ 
guage? 5. Name the first Lutheran Synod in this 
country? 6. How many synods were there in 1906? 
7. Has the number increased or decreased since then? 


160 


Study Questions, i. What do you consider the most 
important changes in the Lutheran Church in our coun¬ 
try since pioneer times? Give reasons for your opinion? 
2. What are the main difficulties in the way of a really 
united Lutheran Church in America? 3. What should 
be the great uniting force? 

For Private Devotion. John 17. 23; 1 Cor. 12. 27. 
God in Thee, Lord Jesus: that I can easily believe; but 
Thou in us—in me—that I cannot grasp. The thought 
overpowers me. It fills me with awe. The Church is 
Thy body, and I am a member of the Church! O 
Christ, make me worthy of so glorious a privilege and 
helpful to other members of Thy body. 


161 


31. THE AUGUSTANA SYNOD, 

A little brown acorn, the size of a thimble 
—that was the origin of yonder great oak. 
A handful of Swedes, recently from the old 
country and ministered to by one pastor— 
that was the origin of the Augustana Synod. 

Sixty years after its organization the 
Synod had over twelve hundred congrega¬ 
tions, over seven hundred pastors, and over 
two hundred thousand communicants. 

Its property was valued at more than six¬ 
teen million dollars, and its contributions 
for religious purposes amounted to more 
than four million dollars in one year. 

It had at that time nine educational and 
about forty benevolent institutions, scat¬ 
tered all over the country. Its Theological 
Seminary (beautifully spoken of as “The 
Heart of the Synod”) has always been lo¬ 
cated in Illinois: first in Chicago, then in 
Paxton, and finally in Rock Island, where 
Augustana College also is located. 

From the Middle West, where it origi¬ 
nated, the Synod has reached out to all parts 


Little Journeys. 6 . 


162 

of the United States, and still farther. It is 
now conducting missionary work in India. 
China, Africa, and Porto Rico. 

The Augustana Synod was organized at 
Clinton, Wisconsin, June 6, 1860, with a 
membership of 49 congregations, 23 pastors, 
and 4,967 communicants. About one-fourth 
of these, however, were Norwegians, who 
afterwards withdrew and organized a synod 
of their own. 

The Rev. Lars Paul Esbjorn was the first 
Augustana pastor. Among others of blessed 
memory are Tuve N. Hasselquist, Erland 
Carlsson, Jonas Swensson, Eric Norelius, 
and Olof Olsson—all of them prominent in 
pioneer days. 

The Synod is a daughter of the Church 
of Sweden, which, as a Lutheran State 
Church, dates back to the early days of the 
Reformation. Naturally the membership 
has been almost entirely of Swedish descent, 
and in common with other synods Augus¬ 
tana has been looked upon as a “foreign 
church.” But this is rapidly changing. She 
is fast becoming a native church. Let us 
hope and pray that in making the transition 
she may not lose her “priceless heritage” 
from the Northland. 


163 

What was that heritage? Not money. 
The Swedish immigrants had no wealth to 
bring, for nearly all of them were very, very 
poor. But they did bring health and 
strength and a willingness to work. They 
did not come here to be fed by kind-hearted 
natives. They came to earn an honest liv¬ 
ing, and earn it they did. With dauntless 
courage they cleared the forests and tilled 
the soil and established good, clean homes. 
All fair-minded people have praised them as 
among the most desirable people that have 
come from the Old World. 

But better than all else was their religious 
heritage. I wish that we might return to the 
good old pioneer days for just a moment— 
that we might step into the little frame 
building at Andover, Illinois, in which the 
first few Swedes of that neighborhood wor¬ 
shiped; or the little log hut at Vasa, Minne¬ 
sota, with its one window on each side, and 
a lean-to in front by way of a vestibule; 
or some dugout somewhere on the prairies 
of Iowa or Nebraska, with the bare earth for 
walls, and sod for a roof. Likely as not we 
should find that the altar consisted of an old 
dry-goods box covered with white cloth, the 
pulpit of a homely little table, and the pews 
of rough-hewn planks without back rests. ' 



L64 

The pipe organ might consist of an old ac- 
cordeon in the hands of a hard-fingered 
farmer, and the choir—who ever thought of 
such a thing? But don’t worry about the 
singing. The glorious old Swedish hymns, 
as the pioneers sang them in their crude 
way, gave wings to weary souls and brought 
the worshipers to the very throne of God; 
which is more than many of our elegant 
choirs of to-day can do. 

I do not mean to say that the pioneers 
were all saints. Some of them were ruffians. 
But as a rule they were devout, and many of 
them were consecrated Christians. If there 
was a church within reach they did not wait 
for some one to urge them to join it, and if 
there was none to join they took the first 
opportunity to organize one. To them the 
Church was a holy institution, the pastor 
was a man of God and revered as such, and 
the place of worship, even if it was only a 
hut or a dugout, was a temple of the Most 
High. Such was the beginning of the Au- 
gustana Synod, and from that it has grown 
to what it now is. Let us pray that we may 
follow in the footsteps of these early pio¬ 
neers. 

Test Questions, i. When and where was the Augus- 
tana Synod organized? 2. Show its growth. 3. Name 


165 


five of its most noted pioneer pastors. 4. Where is the 
Theological Seminary located? 5. Why has the Synod 
been looked upon as a “foreign” church? 6. What did 
the Swedes usually bring with them from the old coun¬ 
try? 

Study Questions. 1. Why was their religious faith the 
best heritage the Swedes brought with them from the 
Northland? 2. What effect has the increase in wealth 
had upon the religious life of the common people of the 
Synod ? 

For Private Devotion. Deut. 8. 7-1-k How won¬ 
derfully Thy promise to the chosen people has been ful¬ 
filled upon us. Out of poverty and hardship our fathers 
came to a land of enormous wealth, and now we are 
well-to-do. The Synod is rich. But have we prospered 
spiritually as well as materially? Is the faith of the 
fathers alive in their children? Dear Father in heaven, 
save us from the deceitfulness of riches, and fix our 
affections upon the things that are above, not upon the 
things that are below. Amen. 


166 


32. REVIEW OF THE MODERN 

PERIOD. 

Much good came out of the Middle Ages— 
noble characters, great books, wonderful 
temples of worship, famous universities, and 
a general uplift into civilization and Chris¬ 
tianity. 

But evil was also in evidence. The Church 
of Christ had forsaken the Rock of the Holy 
Scriptures and reached out over the marsh¬ 
land of human opinions. A return to solid 
ground was imperative, or the way of sal¬ 
vation would perish from the earth. 

Several men had tried to lead the way out, 
but had perished in the attempt. At last 
Martin Luther succeeded. Boldly he blazed 
the way back to the Rock, and once there he 
began the Re-formation of the Church on the 
plan of primitive Christianity. Millions fol¬ 
lowed him, and the movement developed into 
a real exodus out of the Church of Rome. 

At last Papacy was aroused. A council 
was called to meet at Trent, for the purpose 
of cleansing the Church of its evils—which 


167 


implied a confession that something was 
desperately wrong. But the “Counter-Ref¬ 
ormation” thus launched was really no ref¬ 
ormation at all, and the results were any¬ 
thing but satisfactory. The final outcome 
was the Thirty Years’ War between the Prot¬ 
estants and the Catholics, one of the most 
hideous butcheries in the history of Europe. 
In the providence of God, however, one good 
thing did come out of the horror: by the 
Peace of Westphalia religious liberty was 
secured and the Protestants were granted 
the same rights and privileges as the Cath¬ 
olics. 

To the Protestants the Bible was now “the 
only rule of faith and conduct.” It was 
therefore necessary to find out exactly what 
the Bible has to say on the great questions 
which the Church of Rome had answered 
out of her own wisdom. To find the “ortho¬ 
dox” answer to these questions, or in other 
words to find answers that would be true to 
the Word of God, was the task of the great 
theologians of the sixteenth and seventeenth 
centuries. And so diligently did they labor 
at the task that this became known as “the 
Age of Orthodoxy.” 

But orthodoxy dealt almost only with 
questions of truth. It piled up dogmas 


168 

(teachings) till they overshadowed the Bible 
itself. Once again there was a famine in the 
land, “a famine of the hearing of the word 
of the Lord.” The relief came when Pietism 
welled up and flowed forth like a refreshing 
stream into the barren desert. 

In recent times Christendom has come 
into close contact with the heathen world of 
the East, and while the gospel has been 
preached there, some of the heathen ideas, 
particularly from India, have found willing 
ears in Christendom. Thus have the popu¬ 
lar half heathen, half Christian cults of to¬ 
day sprung up, drawing multitudes away 
from the simple faith in the cross of Christ. 

Meanwhile the Lutheran Church has clung 
to the Word of God and gone forth into all 
the world. In our own country it has had a 
wonderful growth, and the indications are 
that its real mission here will appear in the 
days to come. Hitherto it has been looked 
upon as a foreign Church, for nearly all 
American Lutherans have been of German 
or Scandinavian descent, but rapid changes 
are taking place, and she is fast becoming a 
native Church. 

The German, Danish and Norwegian Lu¬ 
therans have been divided among themselves 
(not necessarily in an unfriendly spirit) 


169 


into a number of different and more or less 
independent synods. The Swedish Luther¬ 
ans on the other hand have remained united 
in one body, the Augustana Synod. Recent 
years have witnessed a great movement in 
the direction of union among Lutherans, and 
many are looking hopefully toward the fu¬ 
ture. 

Test Questions, i. Into how many periods is Church 
History usually divided? 2. Name them. 3. Which one 
of them was to the Church a time of Formation? De¬ 
formation? Re-formation? 4. What is the true and 
only foundation of the Lutheran Church? 6. What great 
movement has disturbed many Christians in modern 
times? 7. What striking difference between the Swedish 
Lutherans and other Lutherans in this country? 

Study Questions. What was the most important event 
of the Modern Period? Give at least three reasons for 
your opinion. 2. Show that the present is a time of great 
unrest. 3. What is there in the midst of the unrest that 
will not perish? 

For Private Devotion. Ps. 102. 25-28. Like billows 
on the sea the centuries roll. Like pilgrims we pass on, 
willing or unwilling. But I thank Thee, O Lord, that 
we may lift our eyes to Thee and know that Thou art 
ever the same. O teach us to put our trust in Thee, and 
in Thee only, through Christ Jesus, our blessed Saviour. 
Amen. 


170 


O make Thy Church, dear Saviour, 
A lamp of burnished gold, 

To bear before the nations 
Thy true light as of old: 

O teac'h Thy wandering pilgrims 
By this their path to trace, 

Till, clouds and darkness ended. 
They see Thee face to face. 


Hymnal. 


APPENDIX 


IMPORTANT DATES OF THE CHRISTIAN ERA. 


Early Period. 

Pentecost . 34 

Fall of Jerusalem . 70 

End of the Apostolic Age.100 

Council of Nicaea .325 

Age of the Church Fathers.about 50-430 

Middle Ages. 

Conversion of Europe .about 350-850 

Birth of Mohammed .about 570 

The Hejira .622 

Battle of Tours .732 

Council of Clermont.'.1095 

Crusades .1096-1272 

Inquisition established in Spain.1481 

Birth of Luther .1483 

Modern Period. 

Ninety-five Theses .1517 

Diet of Worms .1521 

Death of Luther .1546 

Council of Trent .1545-1563 

Thirty Years War .1618-1648 

Age of Orthodoxy.16th and 17th century 

Pietism flourished .17th and 18th century 

First Lutherans in America.1623 

First Synod organized .1748 

Augustana Synod organized .1860 


171 


























172 


HOW TO PRONOUNCE SOME OF THE NAMES IN 

THIS BOOK. 


Adolphus, A-dol'-fus 
Alexandria, Al-eg-zan'-dri-a 
Alexis, A-lex'-is 
Ambrose, Am'-broze 
Ananias, An-a-ni'-as 
Andover, And'-over 
Ansgar, Ans'-gar 
Arabia, A-ray'-be-a 
Arius, A'-re-us 
Arndt, Arnt 
Athanasius, Ath-a-nay'- 
she-us 

Augsburg, Awgz'-burg 
Augustana, Aw-gus-ta'-na 
Augustine, Aw'-gus-teen 
Basil, Bay'-sil 
Bohemia, Bo-hee'-mi-a 
Bouillon, Boo'-yon' 

Cadiz, Kay'-diz 
Caesar, See'-zar 
Calvin, Kal'-vin 
Campanius, Kam-pay'-ni-us 
Carthage, Kar'-thage 
Chemnitz, Kem'-nits 
Chrysostom, Kris'-o-stom 
Clement, Klem'-ent 
Clermont, Kler'-mont 
Columba, Ko-lum'-ba 
Comnenus, Kom-ne'-nus 
Constantine, Kon'-stan-tine 


Constantinople, Kon-stan- 
ti-no'-pel 

Corinth, Kor'-inth 
Crusade, Kroo-said' 
Cyprian, Sip'-ri-an 
Cyrus, Sy'-rus 
Dominican, Do-min'-i-can 
Eielsen, Ay'-el-sen 
Eisleben, Ice'-lay-ben 
Erfurt, Er'-foort 
Esbjorn, Esb'-yurn 
Falckner, Falk'-ner 
Franciscan, Fran-sis'-kan 
Francke, Frong'-kay 
Gerhardt, Ger'-hart 
Gloria Dei, Glo'-re-a Day'-e 
Godfrey, God'-fray 
Gustavus, Gus-ta'-vus 
Hasselquist, Has'-sel-kwist 
Hauge, How'-ge 
Hawaii, Ha-wa'-ye 
Hejira, He-ji'-ra 
Hilary, Hil'-a-ry 
Ignatius, Ig-nay'-she-us 
Irenaeus, I-re-nay'-us 
Jerome, Je-rome' 

Justin, Just'-in 
Koran, Ko-ran' 

Liibeck, Lee'-beck 
Liitzen, Leet'-zen 
Madagascar, Mad-a-gas'-kar 


173 


Manichaeans, Man-i-kee'- 
ans 

Manichaeus, Man-i-kee'-us 
Martel, Mar-tell' 

Mecca, Mek'-ka 
Medina, Me-dee'-na 
Melanchthon, Me-lank'-ton 
Milan, My'-lan 
Mohammed, Mo-ham'-ed 
Mohammedanism, Mo-ham'- 
ed-an-ism 
Monica, Mon'-i-ka 
Moslem, Moz'-lem 
Muhlenberg, Moo'-len-berg 
Nicaea, Ny-see'-a 
Norelius, No-ray'-le-us 
Origen, Or'-i-jen 
Palestine, Pal'-es-tine 
Papacy, Pay'-pa-se 
Patricius, Pa-tri'-she-us 
Patrick, Pat'-rik 
Persia, Per'-she-a 
Pharisee, Far-i-see 
Polycarp, Pol'-i-karp 


Reorus, Re-or'-us 
Saphira, Sa-fy'-ra 
Seville, Se-vill' 

Spener, Spay'-ner 
Stephen, Stee'-ven 
Stuyvesant, Sty'-ve-sant 
Tarsus, Tar'-sus 
Tauler, Tow'-ler 
Tertullian, Ter-tull'-i-an 
Tetzel, Tet'-zel 
Torkillus, Tor'-kil-us 
Tours, Toor 
Tuve, Too'-ve 
Ulfilas, Ur-fi-las 
Ulrich, Ul'-rik 
Urban, Ur'-ban 
Verona, Ve-ro'-na 
Wallenstein, Wal'-len-stine 
Westphalia, West-fay'-lia 
Wicoca, Wy-ko'-ka 
Wittenberg, Wit'-en-berg 
Zinzendorf, Zin'-zen-dorf 
Zwingli, Zwing'-le 













































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